Welcome to the Relationships and Technology Lab.

I'm Liesel Sharabi, an associate professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and Director of the Relationships and Technology Lab at Arizona State University.

 

My research explores how communication technologies are used for mate selection and relationship initiation. I'm especially interested in modern romance and how technology is transforming the ways we meet, date, and fall in love. Much of my work centers around online dating sites and mobile dating apps. I'm also interested in where dating could be headed in the future, including multimodal relationships, the role of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) in facilitating relationships, and intimate relationships in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). One of the primary goals of my research is to better understand the growing interdependence between our online behaviors and our offline relationships.

 

My work has appeared in a variety of edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals, as well as in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Boston Globe, Time Magazine, WIRED, and the BBC. I've spoken about dating and technology on NPR Marketplace, The Wall Street Journal Tech News Briefing, the American Statistical Association's Stats + Stories podcast, the American Psychological Association's Speaking of Psychology podcast, and the Harvard Data Science Review podcast. I received the 2022 Early Career Award and the 2024 Franklin Knower Article Award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association.

 

More information about my lab can be found on this website. For summaries of some of our latest studies, check out my "Dating in the Digital Age" blog for Psychology Today.​