Fig. 1.

Potential factors influencing the experience of online intimacy. A number of factors may influence the experience of online intimacy, including social parameters, modality, and prior familiarity. Social parameters refer to the online context in which interpersonal interactions occur, including one-on-one, multi-user or social networking contexts. Prior familiarity relates to online interactions either with strangers or with individuals with whom one has a prior offline relationship. Modality encompasses the physical features of the online setting, including unimodal text-based platforms, multimodal text, audio and video platforms, or immersive 3-dimensional online environments. Finally, individual characteristics modulate the perception of the different features of online contexts to influence the experience of online intimacy.