The Negative Effects Social Media

1948 Words4 Pages

Nowadays, it is not only common to have social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, but expected. Many people know the numerous benefits of signing-up for these accounts: keeping in touch with friends, being able to organize information and photographs, keeping track of dates or news, and many more. However, new research suggests that the use of these social media networks, specifically Twitter, can cause great unhappiness in relationships (“Twitter use…”). It appears that the social media page can act as a third member of the relationship. The use of these networks can take up so much time of one or both of the partners, that it is like having another person in the relationship. Unfortunately, this loss of time as well as the other negative affects social media has on relationships, can lead to communication issues and arguments.

An article from CBS News entitled, “Twitter use linked to relationship conflict, infidelity, and divorce”, seeks to explain the relationship between Twitter and relationship conflict by first explaining a survey done by a doctoral student named Russell Clayton and The Huffington Post. Clayton, based on previous findings that Facebook can lead to relationship conflicts, hypothesized that Twitter usage would also have a positive correlation with relationship problems. To test this hypothesis and perform the self-report, non-experimental study, Clayton surveyed twitter users by tweeting out an online survey that requested for Twitter users to report how often they tweet, how often they message others, how often they reply to followers, and most importantly, if their behavior on twitter ever led to problems with their partners (“Twitter use…”). The results of the study claim that the m...

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...arcissism and points readers to studies showing that narcissists typically have shorter relationships.

There are possible solutions to the problem.

"Some couples share joint social networking site accounts to reduce relationship conflict," Clayton advised.

And if that doesn't work out, couples can always turn to even more technology. Apps like 2Life are designed to get partners talking again.

Clayton plans on looking at Instagram and LinkedIn users next. It's hard to say this is scientifically solid research, considering it is a self-reported study with responses solicited on the social-media platform in question. Perhaps people in happy relationships didn't feel like responding.

Either way, if people want to avoid social-media-related relationship drama, the best advice may be to pay more attention to your real-life partner than your online followers.

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