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Sydney Meadows

Professor Holland

English 1510

4 April 2019

Technology Destroys Romantic Relationships

“Relationships are harder now, because conversations become texting, arguments become

phone calls, and feelings become status updates” (Unknown). Imagine growing up when

technology does not play such a prominent role in romantic relationships. Where finding out

specific details about a significant other was not at the click of a button on a social media

account. In this far away dreamland, jealousy, adultery, and divorce rates might be rare

occurrences, unlike in society today. These claims can be followed up in a survey where results

stated that “someone who does not use social media is over 11 percent happier in his or her

marriage than a heavy social media user” (Rosenfeld CNBC). Social media has continuously

became more involved in the everyday lives of people throughout the world. This form of online

communication provides information about a possible future spouse’s age, looks, family, and

personality before the two people even meet in person. This increase is considered a good thing

in some people’s eyes because they believe that it opens people up to new romantic relationship

opportunities, but “social media causes relationship strife more than it creates long lasting

relationships”(Rosenfeld CNBC). Technology and social media have created a society where

romantic relationships struggle to survive through the jealousy, adultery, ghost-of-past spouses,

and other relationship strains that they encourage.

Initially, social media allows a person to watch over what their significant other is liking
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on his or her page, who they follow, and who they are with at almost any time. Knowing these

different activities that their partner is doing can cause a person to constantly be on the watch,

just in case they like that other woman or man’s new “selfie”. Among the different jealousy-

inducing activities a partner can watch over is the stalking of the friends they have on these

platforms. In a study done by Amy Muise, Emily Christofides, and Serge Desmarais, they

questioned a group of people about the jealousy they get from the social media site, Facebook. In

this study it was found that, “the vast majority of our sample reported that their partners have

unknown individuals and past romantic and sexual partners as friends on Facebook, the potential

for jealousy in this environment is evident”( Muise 443). Due to the fact that Facebook and other

social media platforms allow old friends or past romantic partners to possibly reconnect, it can

cause a person’s new spouse to feel like they have to compete with these past lovers. Also in this

study, it was found that 48% of the group experienced jealousy while on Facebook (Muise 15).

The data from the groups studies shows “a significant association between time spent on

Facebook and jealousy-related feelings and behaviors experienced on Facebook”( Muise 15 ).

Spending time on Facebook leads a person to look for information about their spouse that they

normally would not look for. This creates jealousy within the relationship, which causes a strain

between the couple. The struggle in the relationship can ultimately lead to the demolishment of

the couple’s love.

Furthermore, when these problems arise in a relationship one or both of the partners may

try to seek out help to overcome this difficulty. Before technology was a huge industry in the

world, people would only have the options of talking to their friends or just directly addressing

the problem with their significant other. In the social media filled world today, teenagers and

adults turn to so called “experts” on the internet to help them create an idea of how their partner
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should be acting at this point in their relationship. A well known doctor of philosophy, Jesse Fox,

wrote the essay, “Romantic Relationship Stages and Social Networking Sites” and stated,

“Individuals develop norms and expectations for romantic behaviors based on media

consumption… these drive users’ expectations for their partners’ behaviors in the semi-public

domain of Facebook” (Fox 685). Due to information given to these partners on the internet they

create these false expectations for their significant others, such that if they say a certain word, or

act a certain way, then that means that the person is cheating on them, which is not an accurate

analysis for every person in the world. In her book, “How Are Digital Devices Impacting

Society?”, Melissa Abramovitz says, “It [social media] creates a culture without a moral

foundation” (Abramovitz 9). The information given to these adolescents during their early teen

years can cause them to lose their morals, because they believe they have to fit to the mold of the

society that these websites have created. These false expectations given to a person from the

internet can cause a struggle in the relationship or lead to an inevitable end.

In addition, the internet can not only cause a person to have false expectations early on in

the relationship, but it can also cause long-term partners to doubt their significant other’s

faithfulness to the relationship. As was talked about earlier in the second paragraph, social media

allows a person to constantly watch over the activities of their partner online. As well as it can

lead to jealousy when a person does see that their partner has liked another man or woman’s

picture or post, it can also lead a partner to doubt the faithfulness of their spouse even when they

have done nothing to show that they are anything but loyal. A surveyee in the article “More

Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of

Jealousy?” said, “I have enough confidence in her [his partner] to know my partner is faithful,

yet I can’t help but second-guess myself when someone posts on her wall… It can contribute to
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feelings of you not really ‘knowing’ your partner” (Muise 16). Although the surveyee knows that

his partner would never cheat on him, he feels as if social media causes him to doubt her,

because it allows him to see every person that she interacts with. Being able to see this

information makes a partner have the urge to look into who this person is that is talking to their

spouse. If the other spouse finds out that their partner has been stalking their page, because they

doubt their loyalty then it can cause that spouse to become angry with their significant other.

This anger caused by social media giving out too much information can ultimately lead to an end

to that relationship.

On the other hand, some people believe that social media and the internet has helped

people develop relationships more than it has ended them. In his article “Convenience with the

Click of a Mouse: A Survey of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder on Online Dating,”

Matthew Roth says, “Online dating offers adults with ASD (autism spectrum disorder) fewer

social demands than traditional face-to-face dating, fewer nonverbal communication

interpretation (e.g. body language), more time to process information, more control over self-

presentation and a slower pace of communication”( Roth 134). Although this may be true that it

makes autistic adults feel more secure, it also takes away from their ability to improve their

social skills. This online dating for autistic people may even cause more danger in their life than

it brings happiness, because they do not know who they are actually talking to online. In the

article “7 Things Fake Online Dating Profiles Usually Say” Alyson Shontell found, “An

estimated one in ten profiles online are fake, and more than fifty million dollars is lost to

romance scams annually, according to the FBI”( Shontell 2-5).On these online dating sites it can

be hard to tell the difference between a real profile and a fake one, and it only gets harder to

decipher between them with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Nevertheless, some people also believe that social media has been a positive change on

romantic relationships, because they hear on a lot of commercials how people find their spouses

on dating websites. They back up these claims from sources like Steven Petite’s article

“Technology’s Adverse Effect on Romantic Relationships” when he says, “ An estimated one-

third of all marriages today begin online”(Petite 1). Although it is true that one-third of all

marriages do start online, they are not taking into consideration the divorce rates that have gone

up due to social media. These statistics have been shown in the article “Can Facebook Ruin Your

Marriage?” stating, “a third of all divorce filings in 2011 contained the word ‘Facebook’... More

than 80% of US divorce attorneys say social networking in divorce proceedings is on the rise,

according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers” (Lupkin ABC). Social media has

allowed some people to meet and become partners, but it more often causes couples to have to go

separate ways.

Ultimately, social media and the internet have become everyday occurrences in almost

everyone’s lives. This increase in the usage of social media has not only caused problems within

long-term relationships, but it has also caused some teenagers to set too high of expectations for

their partners before their relationship even begins. Social media has caused partners to doubt

each other’s faithfulness and has caused jealousy within the relationship to increase. Although

some people believe that social media has encouraged romantic relationships, because they allow

people with disorders to develop relationships, the truth is that there are so many fake profiles

online that it can be more dangerous for these people to find partners on the internet than it is for

them to meet in person. The internet has been found to be mentioned as a reason for divorce in

one third of all divorce filings. These statistics have proved that social media has caused more

problems in romantic relationship than it has allowed romantic relationships to flourish.

Therefore, technology and social media have created a society where romantic relationships

struggle to survive through the jealousy, adultery, ghost-of-past spouses, and other relationship

strains that they encourage.

Works Cited

Muise, Amy, et al. “More Information Than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the

Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior, vol. 12, no. 4, Aug.

2009, pp. 441-444. EBSCOhost

Fox, Jesse and Courtney Anderegg. “Romantic Relationship Stages and Social Networking Sites:
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Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Percieved Relational Norms on Facebook.”

Cyberphsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, vol. 17, no. 11, Nov. 2014, pp 685-

691. EBSCOhost.

Roth, Matthew and Jennifer Gillis. “’Convenience with the Click of a Mouse’: A Survey of

Adults with

Autism Spectrum Disorder on Online Dating.” Sexuality & Disability, vol. 33, no. 1, Mar.

2015, pp. 133-150. EBSCOhost.

Rosenfeld, Everett. “Social networking linked to divorce.” CNBC, 09 July 2014. Web. 03 Apr.

2017.

Petite, Steven. "Technology's Adverse Effect on Romantic Relationships." The Huffington Post.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 May 2015. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.

Lupkin, Sydney. "Can Facebook Ruin Your Marriage?" ABC News. ABC News Network, 24

May

2012. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.

Unknown. "Relationships are harder now because conversations became texting, arguments

became

phone calls, fee." Search Quotes. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2017.
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