The arena for finding an intimate partner has changed significantly in the 21st century with online love relationships becoming more prevalent. Research indicates that individuals do experience meaningful online romantic love relationships and that these relationships often lead to face to face (FTF) relationships. However, limited research has been done on exploring the experiences of those who are/were involved in online romantic love relationships. Furthermore, research conducted on online love romantic relationships generally fails to investigate how people experience passion online, hereby ignoring this integral component of romantic love. The primary aim of the research study was to explore young adults’ experiences of romantic love relationships in virtual space. More specifically, the study explored how young adults experienced intimacy and passion as elements of romantic love online. The study was viewed from an interpretative paradigm and made use of a qualitative approach. The researcher conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven participants which were transcribed, and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Four superordinate themes were identified, namely, Online Intimacy, Online Romance and Passion, Online Love, and Social Exchange Online. The participants experienced romantic love online and reported that these relationships were very significant, real and impacted on their psychological well-being. The study created a heuristic base that will provide impetus for this emerging field in research.

Maternal smoking during pregnancy has often been associated with numerous adverse outcomes for the offspring. However, its long-term effects are not well established. Given the high prevalence of maternal smoking during pregnancy, an understanding of these effects is essential. Therefore, the aim of the present dissertation was to shed light on the long-term neurophysiological effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on three different executive functioning processes by assessing participants in young adulthood, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants imaged were members of the Ottawa Prenatal Prospective Study, a longitudinal study that collected a unique body of information on participants from infancy to young adulthood, which allowed for the measurement of an unprecedented number of potentially confounding drug exposure variables. The dissertation consists of three separate original manuscripts. In manuscript 1, participants completed a response inhibition task, in manuscript 2 participants completed a verbal working memory task and in manuscript 3 participants completed a visuospatial working memory task. Taken together, results from all three manuscripts showed that prenatal nicotine exposure leads to altered neural functioning during executive functioning processing that continues into young adulthood. These significant results highlight the need for education about the repercussions of women smoking during pregnancy.

This dissertation investigates how German young adults use modal particles (MPs) when communicating in online chat forums. Simply stated, MPs help to clarify a speaker’s intent and mood, without having any syntactical function or adding specific semantic content. For many years, MPs were ignored, described as useless fill-words, or even regarded as "Lice in the fur of our language." (Reiners, 1967). During the last three decades though, their usefulness and importance has been recognized. It has long been established that the correct use of MPs in German causes spoken discourse to sound more fluent and warm, while spoken German without the use of MPs appears wooden and cold. Although various areas of MP research have been explored, the use of MPs by young adults has not yet received much attention. In order to provide a first account of how MPs are used by young adults in informal settings, online conversations (chats) were analyzed to determine the frequency of their MP use. Additionally, this research investigates whether gender differences for MP use in young adults exist, and relates the results within the framework of current research in the areas of pragmatics and gender specific language. The analyzed online conversations were collected from the German chat forum ‘meet-teens.de.’ Approx. 2,000 words of chat data, each from 15 male and 15 female young adult users aged between 16 and 21 were collected. The data consists of conversations between five male-male pairs, five female-female pairs, and five male-female pairs. The analyses of the data found that the female participants in this research used significantly more MPs than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the MPs ‘bloß’, ‘halt’, and ‘mal’ were used significantly more frequently by male participants, while the MPs ‘denn’, ‘eben’, and ‘wohl’ were significantly more frequently used by female participants. The analyses also found that female young adults speaking to other females used the MPs ‘denn’, ‘halt’, and ‘mal’ significantly more often than when speaking to their male counterparts, while male young adults, with the exception of the MP ‘bloß’, did not change their use of MPs depending on the gender of their conversational partner.

Abstract Objectives This study investigates the patterns and levels of condom use; the determinants of condom use and of consistency of use among young adults aged 15-24 years in the Africa Centre Demographic Surveillance Area (ACDSA) in 2005. Methodology Secondary data analysis of data from three sources of surveys conducted in ACDSA in 2005 was done. A sample of 4 157 respondents was analyzed. Univariate and multivariate analysis was employed to compare determinants of condom use and of consistency of use. Results Condom use with the most recent partner in the last year was (51.7%). The main determinants of condom use were partner age difference, residence of partner and assets. Having an older partner than a same age partner was associated with less likely to use condoms (AOR=0.71 p=0.03 females, AOR=0.51 p=0.01 males). Those who were not residing with their partners were more likely to use condoms than those residing with their partners (AOR=1.62 p=0.01 females, AOR=1.61 p=0.03 males). Having more than seven assets was associated with increased chances of using condoms than those with less than seven assets (AOR=1.51 p<0.01 females, AOR=1.67 p<0.01 males). The key determinants of consistent condom use were: age, sex and type of relationship. Females were less likely to use condoms consistently (AOR=0.63 p=0.02) and growing older was associated with lower consistent condom use (AOR=0.88 p<0.01 females, AOR=0.90 p<0.01 males). Being in a marital/cohabiting relationship was associated with lower consistent condom use (AOR=0.68 p<0.01 both sexes and AOR=0.64 p=0.01 males) than those in non-marital/non-cohabiting relationship. v Conclusion Condom use differs between sexes and decreases with age probably because condoms are a male determined method, high contraception use, poor negotiation skills for condom use, need for children and formation of more stable relationships. A better socio-economic status increases condom use. Consistent condom use is lower in marital relationships and when the partner is older. This could be because of gender power inequalities in sexual relationships.

Background: By 2005 an estimated 5. 5 million South Africans were living with HIV and the peak prevalence of HIV/AIDS occurs in young people aged 15-24 years. In order to develop prevention strategies aimed at young people, it is important to determine risk behaviours for HIV in this age group. As VCT has been shown to impact on risk behaviours, it is important to determine the accessibility of these services to youth. Aim: This study assessed the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practises (KABP) of young adults, 15-24 years of age attending a private general practise, regarding risks for HIV and accessibility of HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) services. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by a sample of 100 patients attending a general practice located in Athlone. Results: Thirty-six of respondents were male and 64 were female. The age range was 15 to 24 years, with a mean age of 20.2 years. The demographic profile of the study population was typical of a formal urban settlement in a traditionally coloured area. Sixty four percent of respondents reported current or previous sexually activity, of which 89% reported that they had one sexual partner over the preceding three months and 58%, reported not using a condom at their last sexual encounter. The mean age of sexual debut was 16 years. Most respondents could identify safer sexual practices. While 97% of respondents had heard of HIV, only 33% knew someone who had died of HIV/AIDS. Most respondents knew how HIV was transmitted and 74% felt that they had never put themselves at risk of contracting HIV. Seventy five percent of respondents had heard of VCT, and 60% had considered having a test. Knowledge regarding the location of VCT testing sites, methods of testing and waiting period for results was generally poor. Most respondents had a favourable impression of staff in the clinic/CHC setting and would return to these facilities for HIV VCT. However, 71 % reported that they were prepared to pay for a HIV test. Respondents reported that having an HIV test would have a positive effect on sexual behaviour; however, only a third would disclose their HIV test result. Discussion: Respondents had high levels of awareness of HIV prevention strategies but these did not always translate into the adoption of appropriate behaviours. This disparity between awareness of HIV prevention strategies and actual risk taking sexual behaviour could reflect inadequacies in current HIV education programmes. Knowledge regarding most aspects of HIV VCT was inadequate, but there was a high willingness to test for HIV. Respondents indicated that they were prepared to pay for VCT. VCT could be used to engage with young adults and impact on behaviour changes. Further studies may be useful to illustrate the potential of VCT as a prevention strategy and to promote the allocation of more resources for this purpose.

Cyberbullying is one of the major problems of social networking sites, which has been known to have prolonged adverse psychological effects on social network users. Cyberbullying has been discussed a lot in the literature, but little research has been done on cyberbullying and its related factors. This study seeks to examine the factors influencing cyberbullying on Instagram among young adults. Instagram was chosen as a case study for the thesis because research shows that Instagram is the most preferred social networking site among the age cohort (18–30), who are popularly referred to as young adults. An extensive review of the literature was carried out, and six constructs (Instagram Usage, Vulnerability, Peer Pressure, Anonymity, and Instagram Features) were used to examine the influence of cyberbullying among young adults on Instagram. This study draws from the theory of routine activity theory (RAT), which is grounded on the postulation that criminal acts can be easily committed by any individual who has the opportunity. The researcher reviewed the process and deployed a methodological and concept-centric approach to create a comprehensive conceptual model that included key factors. This dissertation is different from most cyberbullying research in the sense that it reviews cyberbullying behaviours from the context in which they occur rather than the intent or motivation of the perpetrator. The model allowed a holistic examination of factors that influenced cyberbullying behaviours on Instagram. Using a survey methodology, over 201 Instagram users who are also students at the University of Cape Town completed an instrument measuring factor influencing cyberbullying. The researcher deployed Smart PLS, a statistical package for the social sciences, to test for reliability, validity and to analyse the entire dataset. The study critically examined the factors that influence cyberbullying among young adults. The results of this dissertation indicated that peer pressure and online vulnerability have a strong significance in cyberbullying behaviours. Surprisingly, Instagram usage had a weak correlation with cyberbullying behaviours. This study contributes significantly to the exciting research on cyberbullying as it helps identify the factors that contribute to cyberbullying behaviours. From this research, cyberbullying interventions or solutions can be accurately developed.

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