How Social Media Affects Romantic Relationships 

Today social media is a part of many aspects in our lives, in our jobs, in our classrooms,  in our families, and even in our romantic relationships. Today many people rely on dating apps  in order to find their significant other and start a relationship. The number of dating app usage in  the year of 2020 so far is 26.6 million in the US, this is an 18% increase compared to the usage  in the year 2019, which was 22.5 million, also note that the year 2020 hasn’t even ended, and  these numbers may be higher once we reach the very end of the year. (Kats, 2020) Dating apps  have made it easier to make time to get to know people since many individuals have a busy  schedule. We see this major increase between last year and this year because of the current  pandemic occurring. Being quarantined influenced people to spend more time on their social  medias. A survey from The Harris Polls found that 50% of adults were using social media more  frequently in 2020, 33% were spending more time on virtual meeting sites and 11% were  spending more time on dating apps.(Kats, 2020) This data makes so much sense since  individuals are stuck home and aren’t able to go out and therefore are spending more time on  social media and these dating sites seem reasonable.  

Throughout the years since technology and social media have taken over many  aspects of our lives it’s been said that social media has impacted divorce rates in a negative way by increasing them. Yet, in 2019, it was recorded that the U.S has had the lowest divorce rate in  a time period of 50 years. This means that for every 1,000 marriages only 14.9 ended, no data has  shown lower numbers since the 1970’s when it was recorded that for every 1,000 divorces only  15 ended. (Wang, 2020) Even though divorce rates have decreased in the recent years, individuals’ sexual partners have increased over the years. Between the year 2006-2010, the  median number of sexual partners men would have in a lifetime was 6 and for women it was 4. In 2011-2015, it was recorded that men would have a median of 6.1 sexual partners and women  would have 4.2 sexual partners. Over the years the number of sexual partners for both genders  have increased, but not as significantly. During the years 2006-2010, social media was beginning  to become big by that time Gmail had launched their electronic mail app as well as Facebook and  there’s where the online connections began to be made and individuals were able to add friends,  share photos, share a status, and more. During 2011-2015, you can just imagine how much social  media was being used, which means the majority of individuals would have a phone or computer where they would connect to these social media and communicate with others. Since social  media has taken over our lives, this is how much it changed our behavior and interaction with it.  (National Center for Health Statistics, 2017) Social Media has given individuals this dominant  view of the quantity over quality, making it difficult for individuals to choose their partners for a  potential romantic relationship. This can cause a series of issues, such as, individuals to feel  confused in these relationships as well as make it difficult to maintain a relationship because  social media is a world of comparison. Comparing one’s life with others, making us want what  others have and not appreciate what we have. It’s important to note the changes social media  causes throughout the years, sometimes we don’t notice how much social media influences our  lives or how much it impacts our relationships. 

A romantic relationship between two beings usually begins with attraction. You are  physically attracted to an individual and it’s what provokes this urge inside us to quickly show  affection. Later, if given a chance to get to know the other person, you get to build a bond,  sharing thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears, things that are important to know by one another. Individuals usually begin to build trust, getting to know each other’s personalities and likes and  dislikes. If both individuals are still content with one another after getting to know each other,  they usually commit to each other and this is where a romantic relationship begins. These are  three main components of an upcoming relationship and it’s how a romantic relationship usually begins or at least what leads to one. (Lyness, 2020) 

Many times, in romantic relationships couples face challenges meeting each other’s needs  and standards. Many obstacles are bumped into as a couple, such as lack of understanding and  comprehending, and sometimes even family may be an obstacle. Challenges are often met in every  relationship for sure and it’s important to be able to compromise with your significant other in  order to overcome these challenges. Since social media has had a major growth since the early  2000’s, it has impacted these romantic relationships as well as adding on to the challenges and  obstacles a couple may face regularly. In a 2014 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, it  was found that “one in four cell phone owners in a relationship or marriage found their partner  too distracted by their cell phone”. (GoodTherapy, 2017) Social media has made individuals  spend more time scrolling through social media that they don’t find time to spend quality time  with their significant other. This issue brings more stress to a relationship because there’s no  time for intimacy between two individuals since they’re too busy spending time on their screens. In the poll information it was stated that one in ten couples have argued with a partner about  excessive time spent on these devices and that most of those arguments were about deciding the  appropriate time to use a device and when not to use it. This goes to show that individuals are  obsessed with technology and social media platforms that it becomes hard to control themselves  and prioritize their time with their significant others. Since the use of dating apps and social media platforms have increased in the past few years, it’ll most likely result in more issues and  more arguments in romantic relationships. Along with social media taking time away from a couple’s intimacy or quality time,  social media has also changed a couple’s sexual interactions. There’s a new way to sexually interact through social media and it’s called sexting. Sexting are messages sent with explicit sexual  language and content; sexting became very popular among adults in 2012. In 2012 it was  recorded that one in five cellphone users said they would receive a sext from their significant  other and in four years one third of the data collected in 2012 has increased. These new ways of  interacting with our significant other has shown how social media and technology has become a  place where we as individuals have become extremely comfortable with sharing sexual content  with others. In just four years from sexting just becoming popular, it has increased by a lot and as  years continue to go by and there are more social media platforms and individuals become more  comfortable doing it. With the use of dating apps and building relationships through social  media, sexting will only become more popular and will be done more often. (Goodtherapy, 2017) 

Leaning more to the communication and emotional connection aspect of a romantic  relationship, social media has had a big impact on these aspects. Social media has made  communication quick and inefficient; it’s becoming more difficult to stay emotionally connected  to your partner when social media is in between both individuals. In a relationship, what forms  the emotional connection between two individuals is the nonverbal communication in between,  such as their body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. These are important factors in  a relationship, it helps both parties to understand each other in a nonverbal way and with social  media this aspect is affected and even lost. Communicating through social media can often lead to too many misunderstandings in a simple conversation, both partners may be arguing or having a  discussion where in-person communication is very needed and here’s where social media isn’t  helpful at all. Social media has become an addiction to many individuals to the point where it  greatly affects their relationships and in order to maintain a healthy relationship and their social  media life, developing routines such as a time in the day where they can take a break from social  media is needed. Social media has changed the meaning of our words, our actions, our  communication, and the human experience in relationships. We should be aware of this impact  because sometimes we may not notice why we keep changing partners or why it seems hard to  maintain a healthy relationship or a relationship at all.  

Behavioral scientist Silva (2018) was interested in the role that social media plays in an  individual’s romantic relationship as well as their self-esteem. She mentions how social media is  a big platform where people mostly post their highlights of their personal lives, this may be a  dream vacation, having an amazing romantic relationship with their partner, a brand-new car,  etc. People like to share the positive aspects of their lives obviously, this would create conflict  with one self when scrolling through social media and seeing all these positive things happening  to others, one self would start to compare their lives to those who are sharing their positive  highlights of theirs. With this self-conflict many individuals may encounter when scrolling  through their social media Scientist Silva was also curious on how comparing one’s life with  others on social media affect their romantic relationship. 

During her experiment method, Behavioral Scientist Silva conducted in-depth interviews  with men and women from ages 28-73, who are active social media users, all participants were  females and males. She performed a type of survey with specific questions and asked them to  answer truthfully. During the study it was found that 60% of media users have reported that using social media has impacted their self-esteem in a negative way, 50% of the participants said  that social media has had negative effects on their romantic relationships, and 80% said that it’s  easier to deceive other individuals through their social media posts. This leads to social media  creating what is known as a paradox effect, which is giving an illusion of many choices making  it harder to find successful options. Basically, for some people posting dinner dates, dream  vacations, etc. is their interaction, they prefer these types of interactions than an authentic  genuine human interaction. In the aspect of a romantic relationship, this paradox creates  an illusion to the individual due to having lots of social engagement and popularity that they tend  to hide their true self. It was found that many times people prefer interacting socially than  physically since it is much easier to pretend to be someone else on the media and this way  individuals seek validation through social interaction and may feel more accepted into society.  Also it was found that 60% of millennials do have the fear of missing out when comparing  themselves with other on social media this connects to romantic relationships in a way where  people feel like the need to also keep up with each other’s lives on social media and since only  the positives are ever posted we start to compare our lives outside of the media to others media  live and this is what causes individuals self-esteem to decrease. With this happening so much on  social media it begins to also create fear in social media users making them unable to deal with  rejection and detachment. (Silva 2018) 

With the finding of the experiment, there are many crossovers and domino effects that are  caused and root from social media. Social media seems to be the place where people are able to  be whoever they want to be portrayed based on their posts. The person they portray may either  be their true selves or it may be the person they’d want to be seen as. It is very common that  people post the highlights of their lives and the positive aspects and this causes individuals to compare their real lives with others social life that after all may not even be portrayed the same as  their real life. Since this affects an individual’s self-esteem, it creates insecure people, leading  them to feel insecure in their romantic relationships as well, it makes it more difficult to deal  with the negatives of a relationship such as a breakup or rejections we will definitely face as  individuals. With this in mind, society should keep in mind that social media focuses on the way  people want to be perceived as, and how it does not determine the success of another person’s  life or doesn’t determine your success by comparing yourself. Other studies relating to the use of  social media and romantic relationships have unraveled other consequences to the result of high usage of social media. 

Psychologist Yacoub, Spoede, Cutting, and Hawley decided to experiment the impact of  social media on romantic relationships. They first brought up some points about how social media  has affected our lives, for example, our addiction through social media platforms, the increased use  of dating apps over the years, and choosing social interaction over physical interaction. These  few points actually can lead to a lot of negative impacts in a romantic relationship, individuals are less likely to commit to a relationship especially if the relationship was built through a dating  app, it is most likely that even if they find a partner the use of the dating app won’t stop. As well  as any social interaction with an ex, social media has made it easier to check up on someone’s life since everything is posted on these social media sites. Even though you may be in a  relationship, another individual’s ex may still be present somehow and it’s most likely through  social media platforms.  

For the experiment conducted, there were 100 participants where there were a mix of  genders as well as ethnicity. The participants ranged from ages 18-56, the majority of these  participants were in their 20’s. Emails were sent to a college campus and students were given anoverview of the experiment and a few questions. The students who were chosen for the  experiment were asked for their age, gender, relationship status, and the social media platform  that they used regularly. After having collected this data, they were given a questionnaire called  Social Network Site Intrusion Questionnaire. This questionnaire measured the prevalence of  social media in these individuals’ lives. 

After the experiment and data collection, psychologists came to the conclusion that even  though other studies have shown that there is no type of romantic relationship was being affected  by the increased use in social media. But in this specific study it has shown a negative impact  and relationship between relationship satisfaction and social networking sites intrusion. The data  collected showed how individuals who used social media consistently tend to feel less satisfied with their relationship than those individuals who didn’t use social media as often. In other  words, the more that social media plays a big role in the life of an individual the less satisfaction  they will report from their romantic relationships. The reason that this happens is because social  media platforms give individuals the chance to see others’ lives. Most of the time individuals use  social media to post the highlights of their personal lives as we previously discussed, because of  this individual gets to see other relationships and what they do for each other or what gifts they  gave to each other for a holiday or a birthday. These events will then be because individuals will  then be compared to others romantic relationships with their own and disregard their partners  efforts and therefore cause dissatisfaction in the relationship. 

Even though there are negative aspects of the use of social media and romantic  relationships, not all aspects. Some individuals do find that social media has been helpful in  their relationships. The authors Lenhart, Anderson, and Smith, have collected some data from High school teenagers in order to find the connection that these teenagers have with social media and their romantic relationships and how they use social media in their relationships. These  Social media platforms can be another language used to show affection to your significant other but at the same time, they can also bring jealousy and instability to a relationship as well.  Teenagers have stated that social media has deficiently impacted their lives as well as their romantic relationships in some way whether it is in a negative way or positive. The authors splits the data into four sections, first they measure how connected teenagers feel to their significant others life, if they view social media as a place to show that they care about their significant other if social media makes them feel emotionally closer to their significant other, and if social media makes them feel jealous or unsure about their relationship. 

In their experiment, their focus group to collect this data was specifically High School  males and females who are social media users and have experience with relationships of course. I  will assume that these four sections that were being measured were put into questions for the  students to answer “yes I agree” or “no, I don’t answer” and according to their answer they’d put  them in the corresponding category. The results found in this mysterious experiment for the first  category of “Feels more connected to significant others life”, 59% teens said that yes, social  media does make them feel more connected with what is going on in their partners life, but 15%  of those teens say that it makes them feel “a lot” more connected and the remaining 35% states  that social media does not make them feel more connected to their partner. The next category of  social media makes you feel “like you have a place to show you care about significant others”,  47% of the teens said yes it does, 12% said “a lot”, and 45% said that they feel like social media  does not allow them to show that they care. The second to last category of does social media  bring you “emotionally closer to significant other”, 44% teen said that it does, 10% say “a lot”, and 50% say no. The last category of social media makes you “Jealous or unsure of your  relationship”, 27% of teens say yes, 7% say “a lot”, and 68% say it does not. (Yacoub, Spoede,  Cutting, Hawley, 2018) 

With the data presented, it did stand out that both females and males have different  answers as well as different point of views in these categories/questions. It makes sense to me  because the two different genders as well as both genders carry a set of expectations depending on the society they live in. Today, social media plays a big role in people’s lives, with this new  generation who grew up with technology and social media, they both have expanded to many  aspects of our lives and even our “love life”. Teenagers have taken the advantage of this and are  able to develop romantic relationships through social media. Social media is a way to hide your  face and in some way make it feel as if you’re anonymous, which is why it makes sense that 45%  of teens feel more connected to their partners life through social media, or why 35% of teens feel  like they have a place to show that they care about their lover through social media, or why 34%  feels emotionally closer to their significant other through social media. It makes sense because  they can hide their face and it becomes easier, especially if they are shy individuals, this part of  the relationships becomes so much easier since you can show these aspects to one another  through social media.  

The use of social media over the years has increased and will continue to increase along  with the growth of technology. The world has reached addiction with social media and will  continue to stay addicted, as well as continue to have a negative effect on their romantic  relationships. Social media use has caused individuals to have multiple partners, have less human  interaction that is necessary in a relationship, individual’s addiction to social media, and to compare our relationships with these “perfect” relationships we see on these platforms. Social  media has caused this domino effect in romantic relationships, one thing leads to another, it’s like  a snowball that keeps getting bigger. With this addiction to social media our generation has, it is  very likely that the list of negative impacts it has on our romantic relationships will simply  continue to grow. Social media changes aspects of relationships, our addiction causes us to pay  less attention to our significant other, when quality time is essential in a relationship to keep a  healthy communication between the two. It changes the sexual intimacy between two individuals  with sexting, making sexual intimacy not so special anymore. It causes misunderstanding in an  important conversation, in text or social media, things can easily be perceived differently. Face  to face contact can be necessary in these important conversations with your significant other.  Social media also causes us to compare our romantic relationships to what we see on these  platforms, people will always post their highlights in their lives and can even give off this image  of their perfect relationship. We tend to compare our relationships as well as we compare  ourselves and become discontent with what we have instead of appreciating it. This comparison  issue we have then turns into a discontent in our relationships and a discontent with ourselves  and who we are. 

Couples who are seeking a healthy content romantic relationship should take into  consideration all the factors that social media can contribute to their relationship. Involving social media with their romantic relationship can lead to these factors without noticing and  therefore, being aware of this negative impact can help in carrying a relationship in a healthy  manner where social media can be present but not allowing it to affect your relationship.

References 

GoodTherapy. “3 Ways Technology Can Negatively Impact Your Relationships.” GoodTherapy,  12 Oct. 2017, www.goodtherapy.org/blog/3-ways-technology-can-negatively-impact-your relationships-0919167.  

Kats, Rimma. “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus: How Dating Is Becoming More Virtual  amid the Pandemic.” Business Insider, 14 Sept. 2020, www.businessinsider.com/dating apps-growing-becoming-more-virtual-amid-pandemic-2020-9.  

Lenhart, A., Anderson, M., & Smith, A. (2019, December 31). Many Teens View Social Media  and Text Messaging as a Space for Connection, Emotional Support – and Occasional Jealousy – in the Context of Their Relationships, Although Most Say Social Media Has a Relatively Minor Impact. Social Media and Teen Romantic Relationships, Chapter 4.  

Lyness, D’Arcy “Love and Romance (for Teens) – Nemours KidsHealth.”, KidsHealth, The  Nemours Foundation, 2020, kidshealth.org/en/teens/love.html.  

National Center for Health Statistics. “NSFG – Listing N – Key Statistics from the National  Survey of Family Growth.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for  Disease Control and Prevention, 7 July 2017, www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsfg/key_statistics/n.htm.  

Silva, C. (2018, February 07). Your Happiness Hypothesis Study Findings Social Media’s Impact on Relationships and Self-Esteem. Retrieved September 10, 2020. 

Wang, Wendy. “The U.S. Divorce Rate Has Hit a 50-Year Low.” Institute for Family Studies, 10  Nov. 2020, ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-year-low.  Yacoub, C., Spoede, J., Cutting, R., & Hawley, D. (2018, November). The Impact of Social Media on Romantic Relationships. Journal of Education and Social Development (pages, 53-58)