How does Social Media affect relationships? Boon or Bane? Suffering or Happiness?

Have you ever sat in a room with your partner and both of you are on your phones? Perhaps this happens for a few hours each day, or every single night for hours on end. Are you checking your social media pages, instead of checking up on your partner? In this decade, people are interacting less face to face more than ever. Many couples have even become addicted to social media. If you are on your phone more often than you are with your partner in reality, then this article is for you.

Social media is addictive

Social media is as addictive as taking drugs.
The sad thing is, that this addiction is more prevalent among children.
You can only imagine how this kind of addiction can affect relationships.

According to a study done at Harvard University, when people are going through social media platforms, it lights up the same part of the brain, that also ignites when taking things such as drugs. It is dopamine inducing. So if you are addicted to social media, you could be checking your feeds, or notices compulsively throughout the day. If you are in a marriage this could also really pose a problem. Instead of reconnecting at the end of each day, you could both, just be on your phones. You could be missing out on the valuable conversation, which strengthens your marriage; or even be missing out on sex; Which is a really important part of marriage to promote intimacy between couples.

Social media can be very fake

Have you ever looked at social media pages and all you see if happy people?
Or you could see women posing with perfect bodies?

Making you want to have that perfect body, or even wanting your spouse to look the same way. This “fake” sense of perfection, according to CheapIGFollowers could have a huge impact on your relationships. You might look at pictures of people, and wish that you had their lifestyle. When you look at all these seemingly “positive” pictures, you might feel dissatisfied with your own life. Social media does not portray reality, but merely what people want you to see. You could also become jealous of others and of what their lives seem to portray. This could cause unhappiness in your relationships.

Social media can cause mental health issues

Do you feel stressed out if you can’t use social media?
Do you feel the urge to use social media more and more often?

Mental health issues such as depression and anxiety can cause problems in a relationship. Seeing your partner suffer from depression and anxiety can be really heartbreaking to see. Sometimes the lines between social media and reality can get blurry, causing mental health issues. This is mainly seen in teenagers, but it can also be a problem for adults. You might see people with seemingly perfect bodies, and this could cause depression.

Social media can also cause infidelity

Do you try to reduce the amount of time you spend on social media, but don’t succeed?
Do you use social media to forget about your problems?
Is social media affecting your relationships with others?

This is the worst of the worst. There are so many couples who have caught their partners cheating via means of social media. It is easy to start up a conversation with an old crush on social media, or a work colleague. Eventually, these conversations could end up leading to more things. It could be innocent at first, the more you talk, the closer you might become. This could then lead to flirting or confiding in someone else about serious problems besides your partner. Maybe you even end up going out for coffee or lunch, and next things next, you end up cheating on your spouse. Whether it’s emotionally or sexually. Studies have shown that Facebook plays a role in modern infidelity.

The average person spends 50 minutes on Facebook a day. The problem is once again, people are posting what they want you to see. People aren’t posting photos of their struggles. You might be slightly unhappy in your relationship, and then when you see someone else on social media, you might think that they have their lives all perfect. But this is not reality. Social media distracts you from your own relationships, which makes it harder for you to be present. Therefore it makes it easier to start something with someone online.