Flirting with disaster? Hongkongers more accepting of online affairs – but also risk getting caught

Hongkongers appear to be growing more accepting of a partner’s online flirtation, even when it leads to something more, a new study of people with experience of extramarital affairs suggests.

About one in six people interviewed said it was “acceptable” to have online affairs – taken to mean flirting over the internet that ultimately led to real-life passion – or were “neutral” about the question, the study by the Caritas Family Crisis Support Centre showed.

The findings, released on Sunday, were based on interviews with 454 clients who sought help from the Catholic charity after learning of an extramarital affair in the past two years.

Of them, 4.6 per cent said having online affairs was “absolutely acceptable” or “acceptable”, while 11.5 per cent remained “neutral” on the matter.

But using the internet to set up illicit affairs can also come back to haunt the person in question; in a growing number of cases, affairs have come to light when people have checked their partner’s instant messaging posts on services such as WhatsApp and WeChat.

The centre said frontline social workers had raised concerns about online affairs in recent years.