"He/she loves Facebook more than he/she loves me!"
As a practicing psychologist I’ve listened to more than one partner complain that their relationship has gone south ever since the other partner got “hooked” on the Internet, be it Facebook or some other Internet site. In my private thoughts I've usually responded to such complaints with a grain of skepticism: maybe it wasn’t the Internet that was causing the unhappiness, but rather the other way around—that unhappy partners turned to the Internet for comfort and/or distraction.
Until now the above issue--can the Internet hurt relationships?-- has pretty much remained a matter of debate. There have been studies that show that excessive Internet use is correlated with depression, stress, and loneliness (http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2008.01o2). However, these studies still leave us with the same chicken-or-the-egg dilemma: Does Internet overuse or “addiction” cause unhappiness, or do unhappy people simply use the Internet more than happy people do? Well, it seems that researchers are now shedding some light on this vexing issue.
Social Networking and Marital Unhappiness.
In one study, researchers from Santiago Chile and Boston Massachusetts collaborated to look at the relationship between social networking and marital happiness, as well as trends linking social network availability and divorce rates (http://dx.doi.org/10/1016/j.chb.2014.03.034). They focused on 1160 married couples between the ages of 18 and 39 who were surveyed by the University of Texas at Austin’s Population Research Center. These couples were asked to rate their relationship on a 10-point scale based on questions such as:
We have a good relationship.
My relationship with my partner is very healthy.
The researchers also measured the extent to which the partners in these relationships utilized social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Here is what they reported: Increased use of social networking is correlated with poorer marital happiness and a higher likelihood of a troubled relationship along with thoughts of divorce.
Okay, you say, this still doesn’t answer the question of which comes first: an unhappy marriage or greater use of social networking? Aren’t those men and women who are unhappy just turning to social media as an outlet for their unhappiness? Maybe, but , maybe not. Let’s look a little further.
Social Networking and Divorce
First, this same research team looked at how the growth in the use of social networking might be related to divorce rates. To do this they were able to determine the “penetration rates” of sites such as Facebook across the U.S. over time—specifically from 2008 through 2010. What they discovered was something that family lawyers, who handle the vast majority of divorce cases, had actually been saying for some time: that the greater penetration of social media from 2008 to 2010 was positively correlated with increases in divorce rates.
Taken together the above results constitute evidence suggesting that excessive use of social networking and other Internet sites could indeed play a role not just in compensating for an unhappy relationship but may actually contribute to that unhappiness. However, what is still missing is the “smoking gun”: evidence bearing on what comes first.
The Chicken/Egg Dilemma Resolved
We can begin to gain some insight into the question of whether excessive internet use causes unhappiness (including possibly marital unhappiness), versus whether unhappiness drives people to the internet and social media. In this study researchers from the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at the VU University in Amsterdam followed 398 married couples over a period of four years (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.035). Significantly, these were all newlywed couples at the outset of the study, and they were first surveyed with respect to both marital and personal happiness, as well as their Internet usage, starting only one month after getting married.
Measures of internet use involved responding on a 10-point scale to statements such as:
I find it difficult to stop using the internet once I am online.
I prefer to use the internet instead of spending time with others (including my partner).
The psychological variables that were assessed (using a similar technique), included the following:
Happiness
Depression
Stress
Self-esteem
Loneliness
Both Internet usage and the above measures of well-being were assessed a total of five times over four years. So what did they find? Here it is, in a nutshell:
Increased use of the Internet over time was associated with decreased well-being.
Increased use of the Internet over time was found to be related to increases in depression, stress, and loneliness.
These results led the researchers to the following conclusion: Increased use of the internet over time lowers overall well-being.
Implications for Couples
So what do we advise couples and newlyweds to do with respect to social media and the Internet? Are they best off if they simply go off the Grid if they want a happy relationship? Given the pervasiveness of the Internet and social media in cultures globally, I doubt that many people would follow such advice. On the other hand, it appears that there may be a grain of truth in some of the complaints cited at the outset of this post. So unless they mutually forego the grid altogether, the best that individuals can do is to at least periodically pause to take stock.
The following questions are offered as food for thought:
Looking back over the past two years, has my daily usage of the Internet, including social networking sites, increased? If so, by how much, on average, has it increased, per day?
Has my partner (or someone else in my life) commented (or complained) at some point on the increasing time I spend on the internet?
Am I as happy now as I was two years ago? Do I feel more stressed now than I did then? If I were to be honest, do I feel more lonely now than I did, say, two years ago?
Your answers to the above just might prove to be a turning point. They could lead you to make a decision to make some changes in your own interest, as well as that of your relationship.
@2014 by Joseph Nowinski, PhD
Joseph Nowinski is the author of Hard to Love: Understanding and Overcoming Male Borderline Personality Disorder.