Mobile telephony along with the Internet has enabled and enhanced new
forms of human interaction by providing users with easy ways of reaching, and
communicating with their loved ones regardless of distance or geographical locations.
The medium has also not only become very essential to the society, but indispensable to
individuals, families and social groups (Hoffman, et al, 2004). Texting has shown a
great deal of promise to remain indispensable to people‟s communication needs across
their life span. This paper examines how mobile phones support intimate personal and
romantic relationships in digitally emergent places, particularly Nigeria, and argues that
texting is an active and effective medium of interpersonal communication for enabling
and sustaining social and romantic relationships. Applying the appraisal framework and
discourse analysis, the study shows that texting is culturally motivated and provides
some of the emotional support needed in personal relationships; texting is also used to
express romantic feelings both within and outside of marriage. Especially among
dating and married couples, texting is sometimes used in an attempt to resolving
conflicts.
Data for this study comprise 217 text messages obtained from texters at different levels
of heterosexual relationships, namely formal personal friendship, courtship/dating and
marriage relationships. Fifty couples were interviewed to identify the specific essential
roles of texting in their relationships as they form and develop, and the tendency of such
roles to continue across the couples‟ life span.