My Obsession With Social Media
As I dive deeper into my grad program– I find myself constantly obsessed with the human mind and it’s relation to social media. The way social media is changing our brains and our relationships fascinates me.
Someday I think about being a media studies professor and furthering my research in this area. Anyways, if you think your social media isn’t effecting your love life- you’re wrong. Here’s my senior seminar paper thats shares some of those issues and my personal thoughts and resolutions. Enjoy.
Lindley L. Gallegos
Professor Gordon Cheesewright
English 496
1 December 2015
The Effects of Social Media on Monogamous Relationships
The use of social media today has become somewhat of a problem to many monogamous relationships in my generation. I’m going to examine social media in my own generation, people born between 1985 and 1995 that are now between 20-30 years old. Understand that my generation wasn’t born into iPhones, we had childhoods and adolescent years without social media, but in our dating years we have evolved with social media. I am heterosexual, so I will elude to my own experiences, it is what I’m familiar with, but I am sensitive to other sexual orientations and please feel free to apply my research to your own situation as I’m sure it crosses all sexual lines. The idea behind social media, particularly platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram is to showcase yourself, but not all aspects of yourself: solely the attractive attributes. This leaves out all negative personal traits, anything you would find out in a long face to face conversation, and all you have left is an edited, photo shopped, filtered version of that person. The question then becomes: How does one navigate a healthy monogamous relationship and participate in societies social media landscape at the same time? The major issues with the use of social media for monogamous relationships are: the individualistic aspect of social media, remote infidelity, subconscious and addictive nature of social media, and the desensitization to pornographic images. Also social media showcases the availability of alternative partners, not constant temptation, exactly, but the constant, casual reminder that alternatives exist. I believe that is the true threat to monogamous relationships. Creating moral boundaries surrounding all aspects of social media is the only way monogamy in my generation stands a fighting chance.
One of the theorists we’ve been studying in my senior level media theory class is Guy Debord. His article, “The Spectacle,” is extremely relevant to relationship issues arising through social media. One of his main ideas is that all things in life are reflected in the “spectacle.” The spectacle is defined as any image that is produced for media. All social media feeds are simply a representation of real life. The appearance becomes real in your social media feed; but the fact remains, that it is not reality; that is the spectacle. He suggests that social relationships among people are mediated by images. One quote from Debord clearly exemplifies the problem,
“Here we have the principle of commodity fetishism, the domination of society by things whose qualities are ‘at the same time perceptible and imperceptible by the senses.’ This principle is absolutely fulfilled in the spectacle, where the perceptible world is replaced by a set of images that are superior to that world yet at the same time impose themselves as eminently perceptible,” (Debord 4).
That is one of my favorite quotes, because he’s right, this set of images is superior to real life. The problem is that line between real and fake is blurry, and we are no longer able to decipher the truth from our media. Fake becomes real in our minds. Through the caliber and type of imagery someone posts on their social media, the world can learn a lot about that person. Even a lack of images could tell you something about someone, maybe they are rebelling against social constructs, don’t like pictures, are self conscious, or are solely interested in posting scholarly articles. Debord also suggests that this new imagery blurs the boundaries between public and private spaces. A space as private as your bedroom or bathroom become a prime location for selfies, and a space that was once unseen by the outside world becomes a public space on Instagram. Yes, bathroom photos, there is a topic! Who would have predicted. The spectacle is defined by popular culture and therefore, in response, people post their life in a way that reflects whatever is popular at that time. This edited and manipulated representation of real life is all that is left for people to base relationships on if they are meeting people online. Or if they are judging potential mates based on their social status on social media. This new relationship environment is something that scientists haven’t done much research on, but I think I am on to something big, something extraordinarily important, and I predict that there will be lots of research and interest in this topic in the near future.
Eric Pickersgill, a modern photographer, explores the psychological and social effects that cameras and their artifacts have on individuals and societies as a whole. Pickersgill received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2011. Eric received a Master of Fine Arts degree at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015 and is a current Visiting Lecturer (Pickersgill). He did a photo project called Removed where he photo shopped phones out of people’s hands that are in intimate relationships. The striking image at the top of the page was a part of this project. Pickersgill said about this new evolving relationship topic that,
“The joining of people to devices has been rapid and unalterable. Far away places and people feel closer than ever before. Despite the obvious benefits that these advances in technology have contributed to society, the social and physical implications are slowly revealing themselves,” (Pickersgill 1).
He does discuss a fantastic point, that yes, people are now capable of having a closeness with people far away through social media, and that’s great! Your mom is five states over, and Facebook puts her in the chair right next to you. Friends that you lost total contact with, come darting back into your life 10 years later as if you never lost connection. But Pickersgill and I have a common concern: what is happening to the relationships that are right in front of you?
His pictures in Removed showcase the scary reality. In his camera frame you see a family of four, sitting around a dinner table, seemly depressed looking at their fingers in total disconnection. Second, an image of two friends sitting on the couch side by side, completely ignoring each other with blank faces zoned towards the ground. Last, and the most personally shocking image of them all: a couple, laying in bed, turned back to back, looking away from each other into their own hands (see top of essay). It is a clear representation of what is happening in the world today. A world where couples spoon smartphones instead of each other. A world lovers out to dinner look into their smart phones instead of each other’s eyes. A world where human beings walk past you without ever making eye contact. A world where on a subway you are weird if you are looking around trying to make conversation and connect with people instead of checking your email or Facebook feed. People are becoming inseparable from their device, and who takes the hit: human relationships.
When in a social setting, Pickersgill says this about technology,
“This phantom limb is used as a way of signaling busyness and unapproachability to strangers while existing as an addictive force that promotes the splitting of attention between those who are physically with you and those who are not,” (Pickersgill 1).
Human body language is distorted when a little bright device is in the picture, and it is said that body language is 70 percent of most conversations. Someone entranced with their phone is telling you with their body that you are not as important as whatever is on the other side of that screen. What could be more important than human relationship? Obviously: the increasingly intimate relationship people have with their social media.
One of my favorite new discoveries is a guy with a movement, his name is Richard Williams, and he kicked off his campaign with his youtube hit video Can We Autocorrect Humanity? where he hits you with some shocking social media statistics. He starts his video with, “the average person will spend four years of their life on their phone.” He calls out Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, saying that even though he had the intention of making the world a more social place, that he created an anti social media. He encourages people not to ruin intimate moments by taking a picture, and he makes some really cool points. In the future, nothing will ever go undocumented. There will be a picture for everything, and how that will alter relationships: no one knows. But it is those intimate moments that often create strong bonds, and as social media infringes on the private space, I think it also threatens the health of strong monogamous relationships.
Relationship Success
Through social media we now have access to people all over the world, making the dating circle way bigger. Apps such as eHarmony, Tinder, Zoosk, SpeedDate, HowAboutWe, DuoDater, Soul2Match, Circl.es, Plentyoffish, Match.com, 2RedBeans, JDate, Hitch.me, Fellody, WotWentWrong, Nerve Dating, Twoo, Clique, Like Secret just to name a few, want to match you to another person based on interests. I found sites selling and searching for jews, christians, professionals, athletes, farmers, all different sexual orientations, different races, or better yet catering to people with common interests such as music, food, convenience, companionship, nontraditional dating, phone sex, travel, bestiality, polygamy, books, or zodiac compatibility. I mean… the industry really hasn’t missed much! They advertise to every demographic and type of person. These apps are designed to initiate relationships. A popular example with my age group is Tinder, a site and app, where by location you can find attractive people around you, and either by a thumbs up or thumbs down on their profile potentially have a date. If you both thumbs up each other, it’s a match! Sounds fun, and can be. I have some friends who’ve met on Tinder and later got married. I think dating through sites like the ones aforementioned you can open doors that weren’t open before. But there are also dangers to meeting someone you’ve never met. Unlike a blind date, where a trusted friend sets you up, Tinder has no credibility to say whether or not this person could be potentially dangerous or even a sexual predator. Not to mention, that typically speaking, people’s profile pictures are not always an accurate depiction of themselves. Oftentimes dating profile photos are photo shopped or a picture of that person when they were 20 pounds lighter. Do these sites work? Sure, but only for the purpose of meeting someone. These sites can’t filter out all the crap that people put on as a front, you still have to do that the old fashioned way by meeting them and getting to know them. But I’d argue that these platforms are making it harder to decipher through people. (not sure what you meant—this paragraph above is good points but could be improved)
Many times couples in a strong and healthy relationship choose to showcase their relationships on their Facebook pages. And this has proven to be successful in many cases, scholar Lauren M. Papp explains from her study,
“Confirming hypotheses from compatibility theories of mate selection, partners demonstrated similar Facebook intensity (e.g., usage, connection to Facebook), and were highly likely to portray their relationship on their Facebook profiles in similar ways (i.e., display partnered status and show their partner in profile picture). These Facebook profile choices played a role in the overall functioning of the relationship, with males’ indications of a partnered status linked with higher levels of their own and their partners’ (marginal) relationship satisfaction, and females’ displays of their partner in their profile picture linked with higher levels of their own and their partners’ relationship satisfaction,” (Papp 85).
This way of using social media can serve as a confidence boost for both partners if they are using the platform to highlight their successful relationship. My best friend Kyle is a photographer, and he tastefully posts loving pictures of his girlfriend all the time. And I believe it works well in their situation, it’s clear this plays to the strength of their relationship. They use their medias to lift each other and their relationship up, and many relationships in my generation use their social media for the same purpose.
Sometimes people see this as a virtual form of public display of affection (PDA). Oftentimes FBO, slang for “Facebook Official,” can be intimidating for some people. Maybe couples worry about putting their relationship status on Facebook, because this is the modern way of bringing your significant other home to meet your family. But unlike awkward Thanksgiving conversations with your Uncle Joe, your family then gets to vet your significant other based on their profile achievement and personality on social media. Facebook, if used correctly can serve a functioning relationship, but how it is used is very important.
Both people in the relationship must share social media values, otherwise social media can easily end a relationship. Be cautious, like a GPS tracking device, Facebook can become a way solely to check up on your partners behavior, which can lead to an unhealthy relationship. Not to mention Facebook is a GPS tracking device… that is a whole other research paper. Social media can be a app for jealousy, if problems aren’t addressed early. As a concerned partner, one can’t help but wonder why their significant other is liking pictures of their ex or leaving wall comments on the girl from their psychology classes wall.
Negative Relationship Outcomes
Scholar Russell B. Clayton suggests that based on evidence, yes, social media can be blamed for heartache in relationships, in his article, “Cheating, Breakup, and Divorce: Is Facebook to Blame,” he says those who use social media more are more likely to see relationship problems. The problem is the way people are using Facebook, or platforms like it. Clayton explains,
“Research has shown that Facebook is used most frequently to keep in touch with others and to monitor regular friends’ activities. Additionally, Facebook has been found to be used to monitor activities of current romantic partners,” (Clayton 6).
That isn’t surprising. If you had GPS monitors on all your kids, you would probably look at it every once in a while even if you trusted them to go where they said they would go. Naturally, when someone you care about has social media, you want to check up on them. That is the general idea behind most social medias— to keep you in the loop with your friends. The results from his study indicate that a high level of Facebook usage is associated with negative relationship outcomes, and that these relationships are indeed mediated by Facebook-related conflict. I wasn’t surprised to find this supporting research. It is only logical to assume that inversely, the more time you spend online, the less you are engaged in your actual relationship. This kind of excessive social networking behavior, over time, can’t be productive for monogamous relationships; unless, I’d argue that both parties are being aggressively proactive in their intentional posts. Being a passive bystander in social media can turn you into a product of it’s propaganda and dangerous relationship war zone.
If you significant other doesn’t want to be “Facebook official” with you and broadcast your title to the world, if that is something that is important to you, may create cracks in the foundation of your relationship. This Facebook title isn’t import to everyone and like mentioned before, some people hate that PDA bit. But if both users are frequent social media visitors, then one might ask why not make it official, so that singles who are looking know that this person is not available. This relationship title argument goes for all social media platforms. I have seen many couples my age argue over Instagram photos on their photo stream, and the presence of their relationship on said app. If ones relationship is important, then why wouldn’t it be showcased on their profile? One of my friends argues with me, and says he doesn’t post pictures of his girlfriend to protect her— protect her from the scrutiny of 18K women who view his site. Is that something to be considered?
These are all issues that no generation before us has had to deal with. So we are still trying to figure out how to do this successfully. Many couples opt out of social media all together, or once married create a joint account, so nothing can happen behind closed IP Addresses. One thing is for sure, with any issue that a couple faces, the best way to combat long term heartache is honest open conversation— which is something generations before us are familiar with. This is no new thing. It is crucial in any relationship to establish common values, boundaries, and goals for the pair. It is no different when addressing social media. When you become a pair, i.e. monogamous couple, by default, your medias merge on all platforms— you’re tagged in the same photos and create mutual friends. And how you decide to publicly portray your relationship should be a crystal clear, but how you use the media is a totally different issue. In my situation, hypothetically, would it bother you if your man liked images of women on Facebook? Would it bother you if he had women in his top Snapchat friends? Would it bother you if he followed girls from the gym on Instagram? Would it bother you if he tweeted at exes? Hypothetically, for me— duh, absolutely. Obviously these are my emotionally damaging issues that would drive me insane. I couldn’t sustain a relationship with a man who did this, but this baseline is my baseline. It is different for every one, every couple, and changes for every generation. These are all issues that need to be openly talked about and agreed upon prior to making any serious relationship decisions.
Temptation
I’m calling social a dangerous relationship landscape for a few reasons, but mostly because of the potential for sexual imagery that distracts from the monogamous relationship. I will never forget being in high school when my 45 year old dad first got his Facebook. We were sitting around the living room and he started panicking, because a woman with hardly any clothes on started messaging him that she wanted to meet up! My mom and I grabbed his iPad, and I discovered that it was an advertisement, but if he clicked on it, he would indeed be chatting with said woman. Even my dad, a passive bystander, was targeted by a hookup app. My father is an honest and good man, he’s loves my mother and would never participate in something like that . But in other circumstances, to a married man who wasn’t so happy with his relationship and didn’t have values like those of my dad, it could have been detrimental.
Temptation dates back to Adam and Eve, has always been around, and forever will. Many people believe in monogamy, because of their religion or societal norms. As a society we decided that true love and soul mates were a value we’d buy into, we even give tax benefits for those who choose to support our idea of marriage. We are lovebirds, biologically most mammals aren’t designed to only have one sexual partner. Men have much longer lived sexual life spans and can procreate until they die. While women, after about 40, can’t have children. I’ll argue that as my generation gets married and ages it will be hard to fight temptation. The sexual drive of women often decreases as she ages, yet her man is expected to stay with her forever— until death do us part. I guess point is that a man of any age can be attracted to a 20 year old women in her prime, because he was made to procreate until the end, and now with social media he has to ward off sexual images of young girls left and right. Sexual images of young women prey on men off all ages. But temptation is something all sexes face. When faced with the tempting pictures that flow through social media feeds, humans in monogamous relationships must resist the natural attraction they have towards these images. The difference now though is that social media is right in our faces. Temptation is sitting by your nightstand, on your desk, by your bowl of cereal, in your purse, and car console.
Social media encourages cheating, not purposefully, but in the way it’s lustfully designed to create the draw. The same way Las Vegas is a fallacy. In my opinion, Vegas is a truly disgusting place crawling with STDs, addictions, and dirty drug money but it can easily be mistaken for a beautiful vacation paradise. If you didn’t know any better, Las Vegas would seem like an oasis, but the people who live there will tell you the horror stories, and after a three day weekend of binge drinking, Vegas sends you out on your depressed, broke way home. People know that others create their assumptions about them based on their social platforms, so by nature they design them to be aesthetically pleasing. And like Las Vegas, people can have the same draw on social media platforms. Even people with good intentions can give you a untrue representation of themselves by way of image editing.
And once you get into a good relationship, having dodged all the bad camouflaged Las Vegas bombs, how do you keep that temptation out of the forefront of your mind. The bright lights read “Handsome! Honest! Hardworking!” but the lights fade as soon as the sun comes up. I want to know how these platforms are going to play into future relationships of mine, and how to create boundaries so that both parties can feel safe in a monogamous relationship. Once I am married, I hope for the sake of my own sanity that social media plays a very little part in my relationship, other than occasionally throwing up photos of the kids for relatives and old friends.
Backburners and Remote Infidelity
Caitlin Dewey, in her article“Social Media Makes Cheating Too Easy,”
says sex researchers have recently begun to treat “remote infidelity” – emotional cheating, via social media or smartphone as a valid topic of research. Her article is highly relative to this topic. One problem that I see in these social platforms is the ability to see what is happening in your exes lives,
“A new study by researchers at the University of Indiana found that Facebook users in relationships frequently use the site to keep in touch with “back-burners” – exes or platonic friends they know they could connect with romantically, should their current relationships go south,” (Dewey 1).
Dewey suggests that having these past people right in front of you becomes a threat to your current situation or relationship. You can’t help but wonder about your ex if their life is being flashed in your face. This ex of yours is someone who you once really cared about, and even if the relationship didn’t work out, you’ll still always care about that person. Dewey says,
“Men have back-burners at roughly twice the rate of women, the study found. But among both genders, the practice is widespread: On average, respondents in relationships said they had romantic or sexual conversations with two people besides their current partner,” (Dewey 2).
This means people in serious relationships either need to delete their exes or be mentally strong enough to endure the torture of their exes life achievements. People in serious relationships should delete their exes on social media, especially if they have any feelings leftover whatsoever. Dewey referenced OnePoll which discovered in their study which suggested,
“As many as half of all women keep in touch with a ‘backup husband’ they could contact if their current husband doesn’t work out,” (Dewey 2).
It has become easy and convenient to keep in contact with an old flame. Keeping your ex in the social media picture can serve as an easy out if you find yourself unhappy in your current relationship. But easy isn’t always the best way to handle things, and oftentimes people regret making that quick easy decision to message their ex while in a new relationship. Dewey speaks to the difficulty of the social media landscape,
“As if the negotiation of Facebook officiality and the drawn-out dance of flirty texting weren’t obstacles enough, the Internet has visited a new affliction on modern love: It’s called ‘digital infidelity,’ and it’s probably living on your phone,” (Dewey 1).
Digital infidelity will soon be common terms that all Americans know and fear. I predict that this will become a huge topic for research. Sex sells, but nothing sells like fear. People are dying to know what is happening on their significant other’s profiles. And I expect to see more and more apps that help you monitor your partner’s social moves.
The newest app that I see making moves towards this kind of monitoring is called Find My Friends, which you may notice on your iPhone, because it is now a built-in app like Safari or Messages. Here is the description for the app courtesy of the iTunes App Store,
“Find My Friends allows you to easily locate friends and family using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Just install the app and invite friends to share locations by choosing from your contacts or entering their email addresses.
When a friend accepts your invitation using the Find My Friends app on their device, you can start following their location immediately and they can send a quick request to follow your location. If at any time you don’t want to be followed, you can hide your location with a single switch.
Find My Friends lets you set up location-based alerts that can notify you automatically when a friend arrives at the airport, a child leaves school, or a family member arrives home safely. You can also set up alerts to notify friends about changes in your location.”
Soon, if you are in a relationship it will be encouraged and expected to give up all rights to privacy in honor of the security of your relationship. This kind of app is an unintended consequence of social media and remote infidelity.
The Male Gaze and Porn Desensitization
One huge problem with social media is the increasingly sexual imagery that floods people’s news feeds. We all know sex sells. But like Debord’s concept of the spectacle, these photoshopped images give people unrealistic expectations. This is cause for disappointment in ones relationship, when their partner can’t live up to the beautiful edited photoshopped version of the opposite sex. W.S. Chung’s article compared the brains reaction to sexual physical images, using both male and female subjects, in women he found,
“More factors contribute to female arousal: personal relationships, family concerns, child issues, emotional status, physical conditions, menstrual cycles, environments and others,” (Chung 1).
Of course this didn’t surprise me at all. Men are the main targets of pornographic images through social media. We all are victims of this racy imagery, and often producers of racy imagery, even though it was you and your family at the beach, those images can still target men. The real detrimental images though, are the ones manipulated by edits to better cater to the male gaze. Laura Mulvey is a British media theorist, and she is most recognized for her scholarly piece, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she suggests a cultural obsession with the male gaze. The male gaze is the way visual entertainment is designed to create draw from a male’s aesthetic point of view. Mulvey gives a good example of something we see often in film,
“The film opens with the woman as object of the combined gaze of the spectator and all the male protagonists in the film. She is isolated, glamorous, on display, sexualised. But as the narrative progresses she falls in love with the main male protagonist and becomes his property, losing her outward glamorous characteristics, her generalised sexuality, her show-girl connotations; her eroticism is subjected to the male star alone. By means of identification with him, through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her too,” (Mulvey 3).
This gaze is not only something we see in film and in ads (which pop up in your social media feeds), but in most imagery. The way women are framed in photos and in most media is subject to a male audience, the image is designed to create draw by using mans weakness: a woman’s breast, butt, tummy, tongue, or anything else media can sexualize. If a man doesn’t actively choose away from this kind of image he becomes prey.
But to that same effect a man can have the same draw on social media to women, using solely his words. As proven, women are aroused oftentimes by a man’s words through emotional relationship. Without a face-to-face interaction a man could tell a woman anything she wanted to hear in a direct message. Which is equal to a woman creating a fake image of herself. Both of these situations create problems for understanding a person on the other end of the IP address. And even worse, can become problems for people in a relationship being reached out to by tempting outside parties.
One problem in many modern day relationships that no one talks about is porn. According to ABC News, “pornography has grown into a $10 billion business, bigger than the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball combined.” Which is extremely concerning, because as more money dumps into it, it won’t be long until porn is advertised in your Facebook feed. From nonprofit Porn Kills Love on their website Fight the New Drug, they explain,
“In all the serious research that’s been done on porn, no one has found that it has any benefits. What several studies have found, however, is that porn use can cause serious damage not only to the user, but also to those closest to them—especially their partner,” (Porn Hurts Your Partner).
This is concerning to me, because this is not something that generations before us had to deal with, at least not in this extremely accessible way. And how does a woman navigate a relationship with a man who has a porn addiction? I ask, because I dated a guy who admittedly had a porn issue, and he introduced me to “Porn Kills Love,” as he was trying to break his addiction. He knew it lowered his testosterone and effected him psychologically, which was enough motivation to try and quit. According to Porn Kills Love,
“When a person frequently uses pornography, they’re far more likely to feel less satisfied with their partner’s looks, sexual performance, and willingness to try new sexual acts,” (Porn Hurts Your Partner).
This coined “new drug” is something many couples are trying to cope with. And you may think the answer is simple—don’t watch porn. Easier said than done, because sure… find someone who doesn’t watch it or never watched it. But with number of people who watch porn on the rise, finding that person is becoming harder. I’m going to hit you with the stats according to Internet Accounting and Filtering,
“68% of young adult men and 18% of women use porn at least once every week. 67% of young men and 49% of young women say viewing porn is an acceptable way to express one’s sexuality. The first exposure to pornography among men is 12 years old, on average,” (Pornography Statistics: Annual Report 2015).
So if you think your relationship can avoid the side effects of porn, you are wrong, and increasingly more wrong as the porn industry flourishes. What happens when people find out that their partner watches porn? Studies have shown,
“that women often report feeling loss, betrayal, mistrust, devastation, and anger when they learn that their partner in a committed relationship has been using porn,” (Porn Hurts Your Partner).
I think in order to have success in a monogamous relationship that remote infidelity and porn can’t be players. And the best way to avoid these problems is to address them and create agreements and compromises surrounded these difficult subjects early in the relationship. Pornography and the male gaze are big players in our society and our technology landscape. Knowing the effects of both are half the battle, if you are actively avoiding the negative effects you are on your way to a healthier life and relationship. So the next time your significant other wants to be Facebook Official, maybe that would be a good time to start defining how social media and sexual propaganda are going to play into your relationship.
Subconscious and the Future
Back to social media– social media is not just something people do for fun, or when they are bored. It has become somewhat like having coffee, or peeing for my generation. Wake up, make coffee, pee, and check Facebook. It is automatic, and subconscious for many people. I won’t lie, I have a problem! Social media is becoming an art. An art used for self-expression. Kind of like what shirt you pick to wear, what you choose to post becomes part of your identity. Today your first impression of people frequently comes via phone screen, not in person. It becomes dangerous particularly when your mind goes into autopilot and you assess people in cruise control. Naturally people take others profiles for accurate in this mindless state and never ask questions. But this is how we are “meeting” people today. How can one truly grasp reality or truth through a few hundred pixels or 140 characters? There is nothing that requires Facebook or Instagram to police photos to make sure they are real i.e.: raw, uncut, unedited photos. I think maybe they should, that would give us more accurate depictions. There are some companies making a movement to require that all photo shopped photos be labeled! That way people understand they are looking at something manipulated and not something real. Author for the Journal of Psychology, Lori Ann Wagner, talks about the way social media alters human relationship. She suggests that this kind of behavior, i.e. behavior through social media, makes for less honest relationships, and I would agree with her. Paying attention to little human characteristics outside of media gives you the true depiction,
“The reality of a partner may not align with the perfect ideal perpetuated through mediated communication, in which we can edit and airbrush and use search engines to make ourselves funnier, smarter, more charming, or more glamorous than we actually are. In a face-to-face relationship, there might be tears, stony silence, and angry words, or laughter, holding hands, hugs, and tears of joy,” (Wagner 119).
Particularly with photoshop, if photos were labeled as fake, I believe people’s self-confidence would improve because they could see that people aren’t naturally perfect.
But what happens when most human interactions are happening across social media platforms, not the actual social act of being physically engaged? Here she describes something that technology is missing,
“Face-to-face communications give us something we lose in mediated communications: the ability to engage our five senses simultaneously. Sitting across the table and listening to the story of how enraged she was when her boss humiliated her in front of her coworkers, Sarah’s husband can hear the pain and humiliation beneath the anger in her voice. He might notice her eyes are red and puffy—from a lack of sleep or crying” (Wagner 116).
Your five senses give you insight into people and how they are feeling and their motives and intentions. It is possible in the next 20 years that most relationships would initiate via social media. And what happens when you don’t have the face-to-face first impression? What is the point of that God given talent to gauge and read other people within seconds of entering their presence? I fear for the honesty and integrity of all people. But mostly, I fear for relationships. If the only way people are perceived is through their social media then how they portray themselves is very important. How can one be sure someone else is giving an accurate depiction of himself or herself? We can’t, and Wagner argues that we are losing the truth,
“When we meet as human beings, our primary senses provide us with myriad points of information about each other. If we tap into that information, our mirror neurons are activated. We tap into each other’s emotional states, and the resonance creates empathy between us. Empathetic connection is the basis of true human connectedness and the foundation of social relationships. When we sacrifice complexity for mediated communication, we may lose something fundamental: honesty” (Wagner 119).
When navigating a new relationship people need to make sure to take the wheel off cruise control and assess people based on pure human instincts. We have the ability to explore each other without the resume on Facebook. Next time you meet someone, don’t Facebook stalk them first. Ask other people about them about them, and then size them up for yourself so their 40K followers don’t come on a date with you.
Conclusion
“In October 2010, Facebook’s user base was 500 million, surpassing the population of the United States. An April 2014 article in the New York Times indicated that Facebook claimed to have 1.3 billion users. This would place its user base at close to the population of the most populous country in the world: China” (Wagner 121).
Dewey says the strength of a relationship relies on three things,“broadly speaking: satisfaction, emotional investment and the availability of alternative partners. And that is, this new research suggests, exactly what social media promises – not constant temptation, exactly, but the constant, casual reminder that alternatives exist,” (Dewey 2). So with that in mind, knowing that the availability of partners will most likely be the emergency exit in your next relationship, be mindful when on auto pilot and when turbulence enters the atmosphere make sure the emergency exit is locked up tight. Meaning, if you’re in a rough patch in your relationship, don’t turn to your social media for comfort, that is exactly where you’ll find your trouble,
“The existence of other potential partners changes the core economics of a relationship. And so you become aware of the options, both yours and your partner’s. You become aware of how many times he posts to exes’ Facebook walls, the average time it takes him to text back his female friends, the fact that you’ve fallen out of his Snapchat top friends, replaced by his brother-in-law and two women you’ve never met,” (Dewey 2).
This is why it is so important to early on define what is and isn’t going to fly in your relationship. Create moral boundaries surrounding all aspects of social media. What pages are and aren’t okay? Which exes are and aren’t okay? Be honest with yourself, and more importantly be honest with your partner.
Social media has many adverse effects on the human mind. If not in the right state of mind, people are likely to fall for the camouflaged traps secretly hiding on these platforms. There are ways to have successful relationships in social media, but people should be cognizant in what they do on social media while in an important monogamous relationship. The photos you like, the images you post, the articles you share are all extensions of you and people are reading into that. These little things don’t go unnoticed, especially by those who care about you. If you’re in a relationship, you probably shouldn’t like sexual images of people of the opposite sex, or continue a social relationship with your ex, or have social relationships through hidden direct messages. To have a successful relationship via social media, people have to be vigilant and thoughtful in everything that they do. The fact is that cheating is so easy for our generation, with the push of a button, or thumbs up, you could find yourself cheating on your person. This social media landscape could be used to broadcast your successful relationship or drop an atomic bomb on an engaged couple. The key to a successful relationship is the discussion and creation of common boundaries to support healthy relationship behavior that serves both people.
Works Cited
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