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Articles

CJOC: Vol. 5 No. 1, June 2018

Is this Love? A Study of Deception in Online Romance in Nigeria

  • Ibrahim Jimoh Ph.D & Kyass R. Stephen
Submitted
July 9, 2018
Published
2018-06-19

Abstract

This work is a study of the interplay of online romance and deception among the users of social networking sites (SNS) in Nigeria, with a focus on how to avoid fake Internet love. The Interpersonal Deception theory underpinned the work while 369 copies of questionnaire were administered online to a sample drawn from a list of friends of four individual Facebook accounts, totaling 8763 participants. Findings exposed the prevalence of online romance deception and showed that users relied on a number of cues to detect deception, including verification from online friends. Inconsistencies during interactions have proved to be a good way of detecting fake lovers but it appears face-to-face meetings still hold the ace for genuine love.