A new study has found that online affairs can be as addictive and as traumatic  as real ones, even though kisses are only electronically delivered. 

Psychology academics at The Open University have found grey areas among couples over how they define infidelity online.

The study is the first to explore the impact of internet infidelity among those with real experience of it and how it is affecting relationships.

Comments from participants were equally revealing.

One wrote: “I tried to stop but neither of us could. It would start again and since it’s so easy, with all the technology we carry around, it was an amazingly comforting and sexy thing to have. With long working hours an online relationship is like fast food, ready when we are — naughty, cheap, very often eaten alone without the exhaustion of social niceties.”

The research, based on an anonymous online survey among 20- to 73-year-olds, confirmed many participants think the internet makes infidelity more likely.

The study, by psychology lecturers Dr Andreas Vossler and Dr Naomi Moller, allowed participants to write in detail about their experiences with internet infidelity.

Findings revealed that the internet made covert contact with another person easy and had a disinhibiting effect, making it easier to engage in behaviour that might be avoided in real life.

Another participant wrote: “Probably, if we hadn’t established and maintained any sort of contact online, the affair would not have started as we very rarely bumped into each other.”

The study also found the effects of internet infidelity can be as traumatic and wounding as actual adultery.