THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES� FACEBOOK DATING PAGES IN ESTABLISHING INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN STUDENTS

Abstract

Ever since it was developed, the internet facilitated communication between individuals and created new ways of interaction by removing the barriers of space and time. Nowadays, people have a wide range of social networks which they can use for various purposes, one of the most popular social networks being Facebook. In this regard, people in general, and students, started to use Facebook not only to communicate with friends or family members, but also for educational and romantic purposes. All around the world, students from different universities created �crush� pages on Facebook, through which they could communicate and get in touch with people they were interested in, in an anonymous way, the messages being posted on the page by an administrator. Thus, we were interested in analyzing the way Romanian students interact on two of this �crush� pages. The first page is entitled UAIC Crush and belongs to the students of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University from Iasi, and the second page is entitled Unitbv Crush and belongs to the students of Transilvania University of Brasov. The purpose of our paper was to identify interaction patterns in the online environment, by creating a typology of students on the UAIC Crush and Unitbv Crush Facebook pages. The method used in order to conduct the research was content analysis, and the posts were analyzed according to certain dimensions established. The analysis period for the �UAIC Crush� Facebook page was February � April 2019, and for the �Unitbv Crush� Facebook page was February � April 2021. The results of the comparative analysis revealed that on both pages there were 6 common typologies of users, such as: dreamy/romantic; hesitant/undecided; sarcastic; charming; detached; pragmatic. In the case of the �Unitbv Crush� Facebook page, we found another two typologies of users: benevolent and talkative. In this regard, from a theoretical point of view, our research manages to expand on the literature about online dating in the case of students, and from a practical point of view, it provides a framework for the type of students which interact on Facebook �crush� pages, and for the type of content they post.