Girls Talk: Social Media and Relationships

I'm sure almost everyone uses social media now. It's not surprising to hear that a 7 year old kid has a Facebook account. Like it or not, its becoming an unavoidable and important part of our life now. With smartphones, social medias are just a touch-screen away. 

You would think social media and relationships is an unintelligent/stupid/shallow topic but there were many research done and scholarly articles written about it. I for one does not think it's shallow. Sociology and human studies have my interest and social media certainly has an impact on human interaction. 

If we were to look on the positive side, social media helps us to connect with everyone in the easiest way possible. We are more conne

cted nowadays. Its amazing that you can talk to each other everyday even though you are at the other end of the world. But if we were to look on the negative side, yes we are more connected but we became less interactive. We are so consumed with social media via our smart phones that we forgot to interact/talk/socialize with those sitting around us. 

How about its effect on relationships and marriages? 

According to a new study in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, people who use Facebook more than once a day are more likely to report relationship conflicts arising from social media. And even worse—those conflicts had a significant correlation with negative relationship outcomes, like cheating, breaking up, or getting divorced.

Have you stalked and analyse every post, comments on your significant other's wall? Feeling suspicious and later jealously over this particular person who "Liked" and commented everything there is to comment on his/her wall? Feeling insecure that your significant other spent more time on Facebook being friendly with others but not with you or commented and "liked" every other person's post/pictures but never yours? Have anything your significant other posted made you feel uncomfortable? You are open about your relationship but felt your significant other is trying to hide the fact that he/she is with someone making you feel as if they are ashamed of you and trying to hide you from the world?

Its endless isn't it?

"Facebook isn't usually the problem," says Estes, a couples' therapist from San Diego. "It's the behaviors that are the problem." 

I personally think the problem arise when another person feel excluded by his/her partner on Facebook. I've experienced both ends of social media and relationship and trust me, i would prefer a relationship without social media.

The first end was an avid social media user. He was surgically attached to his smartphone. I felt excluded. Sometimes i felt he's a different person on Facebook. He didn't like me writing on his wall or comments. And on the rare occasion that i commented, it always got ignored. Giving excuses like people from his work could see and it seems unprofessional for me to do that. But its okay for his other friends to do that. Or never putting our picture together as profile picture and when confronted said "Its my Facebook. I have the right to put whatever picture i want." Yeah, to the point of putting a picture of him and another girl as his profile while we were still together. Confronting me when i put our picture together as my profile, saying people could see. I mean, what is he trying to hide? Is he ashamed of me? In the end, i became extremely insecure and started to hate Facebook. 

The second end was somebody without a Facebook. Or a smartphone. It was a refreshing experience being with someone like him. He was a simple-minded guy and not caught in this world of technology. He's not surgically attached to his phone. When we were together, all his attention were on me and his phone will always be in the bag or pocket. Not only with me, even when there's people or friends around, his phone was always in the pocket. When we were not together and he did not pick up my call or replied to my text, i would not wonder why the hell my call went unanswered. There's nothing to hide. He is who he is with or without social media. 

Life without Facebook is much more serene. You spend less time on Facebook. You don't suffer from Facebook envy because everyone else SEEMS to be having more fun than you. Here's a thing about Facebook, people used it as a platform to advertise themselves. It's all about creating an illusion. An illusion that they are living the perfect life.