social media effects Archives

Is Social Media the Third Wheel in Our Relationships?

How long do you think you spend with your partner, on average, each day? How often do you really deeply engage with them? Now, look at your phone, how much time do you spend each day on social media? If you’re like the average person, you’re most likely spending around 2 hours and 25 minutes a day on social media. Admit it, that might actually be more time than you meaningfully spend with your partner.

Don’t worry: we’re not going to shame you, because that’s just the world we’re living in. But social media is not all bad for our romantic relationships. It can have a lot of negative effects, but it can also have a few positive ones; the difference is in how you use social media. So how does social media affect our romantic relationships, and is it time to reconnect with your partner?

Falling Out of Love with Social Media

We definitely have a love-hate relationship with social media. More than 70% of us have active accounts, and we spend more than two hours a day engaging with it on average. But we also spend plenty of time complaining about its negative impact on our lives, and how it sucks away our time.

Time spent on social media can even begin to negatively affect our dating life. Pew Research has looked into how partnered adults in this country feel about their significant others’ use of social media (specifically on their phones), and you probably won’t be surprised by the results. After all, who likes to take second place to an app? According to Pew’s findings:

51% of all partnered adults say their partner is often or sometimes distracted by their phone while they are trying to have a conversation with them. And 62% of 30- to 49-year-olds and 52% of 18-to-29-year-olds who are in a romantic relationship say their partner is at least sometimes distracted by their phone when they’re trying to talk to them.
40% of partnered adults say they are at least sometimes bothered by the amount of time their partner spends on their mobile device.

People are doing a lot of scrolling, so let’s get down to how social media is specifically affecting our relationships.

The Bad

What comes to mind when you think about social media and its effects on real-life relationships? Your first thoughts probably aren’t sunshine and rainbows – and there’s a reason for that. There are a lot of negative effects of social media on relationships that you definitely need to be aware (and wary) of. We already know that social media can exacerbate mental health issues, and can negatively affect body image (which can cause problems with intimacy), but it can also:

Take Time (and Attention) Away from Our Partners

We’ve all been there: you intend to spend just a minute checking something on social media, and before you know it, an hour or two has passed. That’s time you could have spent engaging with, or just being present for, your partner. This can ultimately begin to decrease your sense of satisfaction and connection in your relationship. In fact, a recent study has even determined that the negative effects of social media on relationships are distraction, irritation, and decreased quality time.

When one partner is engrossed in social media, they can often get irritated with their partner if they’re interrupted. They can also be so distracted that they might end up missing what Dr. John Gottman calls “bids for connection.” These “bids” can be something as small as reaching for a hand, or something as big as seeking emotional support. According to Gottman, in healthy relationships couples respond positively to one another’s bids about 86% of the time, but being distracted by social media can cause you to miss these bids.

Create Unrealistic Expectations

We’ve definitely all heard this one before, and we know that people often post unrealistic portraits of themselves and their relationships online. But even though we know this, it can be hard not to compare yourself and your relationship to these glossy images, and to begin to feel dissatisfied because your life doesn’t look like all the highlight reels you see on social media.

And not only that, but you might even begin to resent your partner for not posting about you the way your social media friends’ partners post about them. According to sex and behavioral therapist Chamin Ajjan, M.S., LCSW, A-CBT, “You may begin to feel jealous of how much someone posts about their partner and feel resentment toward your partner for not doing the same. The lifestyles you are scrolling through may change how satisfied you are in your relationship because they seem to be better than what you have.”

Cause Jealousy

2 people arguing — *Social media can cause jealousy in relationships, which causes fights between partners.*

Checking up on what your partner is up to online? Feeling a bit green at the sight of them liking and commenting on other people’s posts? There are studies that suggest social media use can create an endless (and damaging) cycle of suspicion and scrolling. As one study in CyberPsychology & Behavior puts it, increased social media use (especially Facebook use) can mean a vicious cycle, which “may be the result of a feedback loop whereby using Facebook exposes people to often ambiguous information about their partner that they may not otherwise have access to and…this new information incites further Facebook use.”

And another study in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking puts it pretty bluntly: social media use (again, specifically Facebook) “was linked to relationship dissatisfaction, via jealous cognitions and surveillance behaviors. The results highlight the possibility of high levels of Facebook intrusion spilling over into romantic relationships, resulting in problems such as jealousy and dissatisfaction.”

So, in other words, spending time on social media sites like Facebook can make you jealous, which makes you want to find out more, which increases your time on social media…which can also be damaging to your relationship. Yikes.

Start Fights

Yes, spending more time on social media can mean more conflict in a relationship. In fact, a 2013 study found that, among couples who had been together for less than three years, spending more time on Facebook was linked with more “Facebook-related conflict” and more negative relationship outcomes. This could be because some couples actually disagree when it comes to what’s acceptable online behavior. For example, you might feel like your partner is oversharing, you might want them to block their exes, you might not like something that they posted, or you might even feel like they didn’t post something they should have – all of which can lead to hurt feelings.

The Good

All of the above is pretty rough stuff, but we don’t want to completely trash social media. After all, it is a big part of a lot of people’s lives these days, and it can’t be all bad, even when it comes to our dating lives, right? In fact, social media can be a positive part of our lives, because it can:

Bring you together – A ton of relationships literally start online these days. In fact, a 2017 survey found 39% of heterosexual couples reported meeting their partner online, compared to just 22% in 2009.
Keep you connected – Interacting over social media can be a fun, easy, and low-pressure way to keep connected to your partner throughout the day. Not only that, but studies show that younger people in long-distance relationships were better able to maintain their relationships with the help of social media.
Teach you about relationships – As with any information you seek out on social media, you need to be discerning, but there are relationship experts out there giving good advice on social media.
Make you feel good – Mutual sharing and public declarations of affection on social media can actually positively impact a relationship.

Help you hold onto your memories – Not many of us make scrapbooks or photo albums anymore; instead, many of us have profiles on social media to do that work for us. These profiles have the added component of being shared with others, so according to Ajjan, “social media can be an institutionalized way to express love publicly and invite community support, both of which enhance a couple’s ability to flourish.”

Is It Time for a Social Media Intervention?

So social media can actually have some positive effects on your relationship, but you still need to be careful. You could be headed toward some serious damage to your relationship if you’re:

Spending less quality time together (especially in the evenings)
Feeling disconnected from your partner
Learning more about their life from social media than from them directly
Constantly checking up on them online
Fighting about social media use, or what one or both of you are posting
Being secretive about what you’re doing online

If you’re worried about how social media is affecting your relationship, or that it could affect your relationship in the future, try:

Setting boundaries around social media time. For example, you can make dinner or bedtime no-screen times.
Planning quality time together at least weekly – no phones allowed!
Communicating, communicating, communicating! Be very clear about what you find acceptable (and desired) behavior on social media, listen to their views on the matter, and make sure you are both being completely honest about who you are interacting with.

Social media: can’t live with it, can’t live without it, right? Well, it’s not going anywhere, so if it’s something you and your partner are engaging with, you’re going to have to find ways to use it as a positive (or at least neutral) influence on your relationship. It’s definitely possible, you just need to be aware of the pitfalls, and the signs that it’s time to change your online ways!

Why You Need to Ditch the ‘Doomscrolling’

Way back in 2018, in the “before times,” someone coined a word in a Twitter post. The tweet didn’t get much attention and was only retweeted by two people, but we were all destined to hear the word over and over again after the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic. The word? “Doomscrolling.” This term has become so widely used (and the practice has become so widespread) that Merriam-Webster has even placed it on their “words we’re watching” list, meaning it could soon be an official dictionary entry. For now Webster describes the term as “the tendency to continue to surf or scroll through bad news, even though that news is saddening, disheartening, or depressing.” Sound familiar? Yeah, for us, too. Think it’s good for you? Nope, we didn’t think so, either. So why do you do it and how can you stop?

Why We Can’t Quit the Doom and Gloom

Have you found yourself turning more and more to social media in the last year and a half? If so, you’re not alone. Twitter’s daily use numbers have jumped 24% since the start of the pandemic, while Facebook’s numbers are up 27%. Now, we’re not saying that everyone on those platforms is constantly doomscrolling, but there sure is a lot of negativity to soak up on social media and in the news cycle, and many of us are eagerly consuming it. Do the words of this self-described doomscrolling addict apply to you? Last year, in an online editorial, Elaine Roth wrote, “Every morning I wake up and press refresh on the websites that track the number of positive COVID-19 tests in my town and state. Then I move to the news and read every word of every article that is no doubt pointing to the end of the world.”Even if there is a very bright light at the end of the tunnel regarding Covid, the cycle of bad news can seem never ending, and it might be that we’ve become addicted to the doom and gloom. And there are actually strong psychological and even evolutionary reasons for this; the addition of addictive, modern technology like smartphones is simply allowing us to indulge more easily in our darker tendencies. Why do we doomscroll?

The psychological factor: The last year and a half has been exhausting, am I right? A pandemic, social unrest, a nail-biting election, and on and on. All of this has left many of us, well, a little battered psychologically. In fact, late last summer, the CDC reported that nearly 41% of U.S. adults have symptoms of at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, including anxiety. And according to psychotherapist Tess Brigham, “anxiety is about control or the lack of control…The more anxious we feel, the more we try and control the situations and people around us. Being informed seems like a good way to control what’s happening around us, but it actually just creates more anxiety and fear.” She points out, “People doomscroll for many different reasons. The main reason is as a way of feeling in control in a world that feels so out of control all the time.”

So, it’s possible that some people are doomscrolling in order to give themselves a (false) feeling of preparedness: the old, “if I can see it coming, I’ll be ready for it” mindset. For others, it might simply be a strangely comforting confirmation of their feelings. According to psychologist Susan Albers, PsyD, “If you’re depressed, you often look for information that can confirm how you feel. If you’re feeling negative, then reading negative news reconfirms how you feel. It’s the same mindset.”

The evolutionary factor: Remember learning about the “fight or flight” instinct? You know, the one that helped humans back in the day run from predators, and can still help us if we’re in a dangerous situation? Well, that response could partially explain why we need to stay on top of all that bad news. Again according to Tess Brigham, “We are hardwired to survive and to see the things that could potentially harm us. That’s in our DNA and our ancestors needed this ability in order to literally survive. While our world is very different, we still have this drive to keep ourselves safe which we think we’re doing by reading negative news stories.”

All of the above helps to explain why we do it, even if we know it’s not good for us. So what exactly is doomscrolling doing to us?

The Effects of Non Stop Negativity

While doomscrolling as a pastime is relatively new (simply because we’ve only had social media and smartphones for a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things), researchers have actually been studying the effects of being bombarded with bad news for decades. And what they’ve found probably isn’t all that surprising: the more news a person consumes surrounding events like terrorist attacks and natural disasters, the more likely they are to suffer from depression, stress and anxiety. For example, a 2014 study surveyed 4,675 Americans in the weeks following the Boston Marathon bombings and found that participants who engaged with more than 6 hours of media coverage per day were 9 times more likely to be acutely stressed than those who only watched a minimal amount of news.

Another study in the 1990s in England found that, unsurprisingly, participants given negative news coverage to watch (as opposed to others who were given positive or neutral coverage), were more likely to feel more sad and anxious after the experiment. In addition, according to lead researcher Graham Davey, “It also had a knock-on effect. People [in the negative group] were more likely to worry about their own private concerns.”

illustration of woman who can't sleep with sheep over her head — *Adrenaline rushes can affect your health and cause you to have issues sleeping.*

And in a troubling study following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, researchers found that TV exposure at the time of the attack was associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms two and three years later. “You didn’t have to live near the epicenter of the attacks, you could just as easily be in rural Alabama,” said Judith Andersen, a health psychologist at the University of Toronto in Canada who worked on the study. “It was dependent on how much media you consumed.”

All of those studies point to what we’ve assumed all along about doomscrolling: it’s most likely taking a huge toll on your mental health. Not only that, but the psychological impacts of doomscrolling can also come with some pretty serious physical effects. Remember the fight or flight instinct that could be keeping us glued to our phones? Having a response like this releases a rush of cortisol and adrenaline, which can make someone super strong, heighten their senses, or allow them to stay awake for long periods of time – but that’s in small doses. Releasing too much adrenaline and cortisol (which is, after all, the “stress” hormone) over a long period of time can cause burnout and even begin to affect your physical health. Stress like that over long periods has been linked to digestive problems, headaches, heart disease, weight gain, sleep issues, sexual side effects, and high blood pressure, among other things.

Ditch the Doomscrolling!

Sounds like it’s time to have a serious talk with ourselves about the doomscrolling. There’s nothing wrong with staying on top of current events – no one’s suggesting we all stick our heads in the sand! – but there has to be a balance. If you’re ready for a negativity intervention, try the following:

Set limits – Some mindless scrolling is ok, but if you find that you end up going down a doomscrolling rabbit hole after a few minutes of checking on what your friends are up to, set a time limit. Try 20 minutes – and stick to it! In addition, avoid checking your phone immediately upon waking up, or right before bed.

Be mindful – You don’t necessarily need to become a yogi and or start meditating (unless that’s what helps you), but at least be mindful when it comes to how your social media or news consumption is making you feel. Dr. Albers suggests, “Be mindful of how a particular article makes you feel as you are scrolling by it. Notice or observe the sensations in your body or your mind’s response to the news.” Are you feeling anxious or stressed? “This,” she adds, “is your body’s way of saying stop.” So you should listen and turn your attention to something else – preferable not on a screen.

Slow your scroll – The human attention span is very short; try to increase your focus and concentration (and your ability to rationalize) by slowing down your scrolling. If you’re not speeding through the news you’ll also be more likely to read past the headlines, which are usually far more sensationalized than the content of the story warrants.

Stop catastrophizing – “Catastrophizing” is when your brain automatically jumps to the worst-case scenario, and doomscrolling is the perfect way to engage in this supremely unhelpful practice. When you find yourself spiraling out of control and anxiety taking hold, take a step back and ask yourself what the most likely or realistic outcome of a situation actually is.

Take time to unplug – Simplest way to take a break from the doomscrolling? Put down the phone, go offline and take time for yourself in other ways. As Quartz reporter Karen Ho suggested in a tweet, “Tonight was really long, confusing, and difficult. Why not take care of yourself and your mental health by turning off your phone, reading a book, and going to sleep early?” We’ll add to that list: try going for a hike, doing some exercise or spending time with loved ones.

Be the positivity – Yes, you can try to engage more positively with the internet – hey, there’s no shortage of cats and babies doing adorable things out there! But you can also lift yourself up by being a force of positivity in the real world. Perform random acts of kindness, smile at people, help a friend, volunteer – whatever you choose to do, you could single-handedly restore your own faith in humanity, at least for a little while.

Bad news is nothing new: we all know that social media and the 24-hour news cycle didn’t invent negativity. That being said, how we engage with it, and how much of it we consume, has changed. But you can break the doomscrolling habit and improve both your mental and physical health! Stay informed, but focus on the things that you can be grateful for instead of the things to be anxious about, and you might find that you have a sense of optimism, even in unstable times. And don’t forget to spread that positivity around!