Combining netnographic and interview insights to understand later life recoupling

Introduction: Increasingly, across Western societies, uncoupled individuals in later and late life are re-entering long-term intimate relationships.  They are doing so in a world that is often vastly different—notably in terms of technology’s role in relationship formation—from when they entered their previous long-term relationship.  But, despite the growing prevalence of this relationship form, it remains understudied.

Goals and Methods: This research uses two analytic strategies to explore the experiences of new romance in later life.  First, it uses 60 semi-structured interviews guided by a constructivist grounded theory approach to understand older persons’ (i.e., aged 55 and up) experiences of searching for and establishing a committed intimate relationship.  It then juxtaposes the findings against data collected from a netnographic analysis of later life love online.  The netnographic data corpus includes TikTok and Instagram content, news articles, blog posts, and content produced by dating services pertaining to finding love at 55+.  Data collection focuses on North American experiences and Atlas.ti is used to manage and interpret the data.

Results:

Interviewees focus on predominantly positive experiences, and highlight the element of surprise in finding later life love.  They also frame their experiences as contributing to lifelong personal and relational growth.  Netnographic data portray experiences as more mixed, and later life relationship formation as fraught with challenges yet worth approaching with good humour and an open mind.

Conclusions:

Results suggest the need for more support and respect for those who seek out and establish intimate relationships in later life.  More public discussion of these relationships is also needed, in large part to dispel myths and reduce stigma.  Findings also underscore the value of netnographic data to augment the detailed accounts of later life recoupling gained through in-depth interviews.