Positive Impacts
Summary
Whiteside et al. (2018) conducted research on internet use in Australia to determine social media’s benefits on intimate relationships. Recent studies from an Australian counselor suggests that social media use has detrimental impacts on relationships. Besides, other studies suggest that it has benefits on intimate relationships. This prompted Whiteside et al. (2018) to undertake this study. The researchers used Facebook as a research basis. A survey of 518 Australians determining Facebook utility, relationship satisfactions, and also household revenue was undertaken. However, the findings suggested that relationship’s satisfactions varied depending on the kind of social media utility when managed for household revenue. Hence, when Facebook was used to keep in touch with family, it positively impacted the couple’s relationship.
Critical Analysis
Social media is advantageous in several ways. For instance, the use of Facebook as a communication medium with family reduces physical distance. This significantly applies in cases of long-distance relationships. A long-distance relationship may arise in a case where couples work in different countries or regions. However, these couples can still feel close to each other. Social media helps maintain the relationship as they can communicate and interact more frequently. Hence, this plays a vital purpose in the maintenance of relationships.
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Also, social media provides a better understanding of couples. This aids in maintaining a relationship as couples will have a clear understanding of each other. For instance, social media profiles such as Facebook usually depict an individual’s personality. They show an individual’s likes, dislikes, views, and habits (Webb, 2017) . This can be convenient in a relationship as it helps couples derive ways of enhancing the growth of their relationships. Hence, it helps couples determine a relationship’s compatibility.
Social media’s use enables couples to stay in touch. In this, when undertaking job duties, one may go out for job seminars, which may last for up to one month. The use of social media such as WhatsApp will enhance staying in touch as one may be able to video call and talk more often to their partner. This makes one feel secure in a relationship. Thus, fostering the maintenance of that relationship.
Additionally, social media allows couples to keep memories. For instance, it may help couples relive amazing wedding and courtship moments. This can be in the form of pictures, videos, tags, or even check-ins. As a result, this helps in keeping the nostalgia and couple's love going robust. Besides, social media enhances bonding. In this case, couples can see what each other is posting through social media’s use, such as Instagram. This allows them to bond over things they like; hence, this will result in real-life bonding.
Negative Impacts
Summary
Yacoub et al. (2018) conducted research to determine the detrimental impacts of social media on romantic relationships’ satisfaction. The study applied social network site intrusion questionnaires and questionnaires on relational satisfactions. They were given to 100 private, faith-based university students. Yacoub et al. (2018) sought to ascertain how social media usage was essential to the participants and how it affected their romantic relationship based on satisfaction levels and the probable causes of their responses. However, from the results, Yacoub et al. (2018) found out that social media usage had negative impacts on individuals' romantic relationship satisfaction levels.
Critical Analysis
Social media affects the relationship in several ways. Among them are loss and lack of trust in relationships. Social media is addictive. This is a genuine phenomenon that applies to people in a romantic relationship. When with a partner, the addiction may force individuals to be more active on social media to an extent where one forgets that they are with their partners (Irani & Rezaei, 2018). This may result in individuals believing that their partners are cheating on them hence leading to a lack of trust.
Additionally, social media is critically a highlight reel of individuals’ lives. More often, people tend to mistake the highlight reel for a behind-the-scenes picture. This results in inadequate satisfaction, discontent, and jealousy. As a result, a relationship’s stability may be altered, hence, leading to breakups due to petty issues. Besides, social media leads to infidelity (Gull et al., 2019). In this case, it usually offers a "safe” mode for individuals in a romantic relationship to cheat on their partners. Often, the individual cannot figure out since there is nothing out of the ordinary. Hence, the always-on phone act results in hiding of all visible behavior.
Besides, posting inappropriate content leads to the destruction of relationship status. For instance, for a girl who is in a romantic relationship, she may expect to be posted out on girlfriend’s day. Instead, the boy she is love with may end up posting football stuff. This may be disappointing; hence, it may result in her feeling that the boy does not love her. Eventually, this may result in a lack of attention.
Personal Opinion
In retrospect, despite social media having negative impacts, it is as well advantageous in several ways. However, the positive impacts outdo the negative ones. Based on personal opinion, I agree that social media is more beneficial to a relationship than its harm. It enhances the growth of a relationship in a way where couples can know their other friends and social circles because the feeds on social media make it easy to see the about of a person. It creates a sense of security since every individual knows that they can get in touch with distinct people at any moment if the need arises. Hence, this makes social media to be considered more of a benefit to couples and other relationships.
References
Gull, H., Iqbal, S. Z., Al_Qahtani, S. H., Alassaf, R. A., & Kamaleldin, M. M. (2019). Impact of Social Media Usage on Married Couple Behavior a Pilot Study in Middle East. International Journal of Applied Engineering Research , 1368-1378.
Irani, Z. B., & Rezaei, T. (2018). The Effects of Social Networking on Marital Relationships and Couples Quality of Life (Case Study: Couples of Social Networking Members in Shiraz). UCT JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH , 1-7.
Webb, A. (2017, March 27). Relationships and social media . Retrieved from The Spark: https://www.thespark.org.uk/tag/positive-effects-of-social-media-on-relationships/
Whiteside, N., Aleti, T., Pallant, J., & Zeleznikow, J. (2018). Helpful or harmful? Exploring the impact of social media usage on intimate relationships. Australasian Journal of Information Systems , 1-23.
Yacoub, C., Spoede, J., Cutting, R., & Hawley, D. (2018). The Impact of Social Media on Romantic Relationships. Journal of Education and Social Development , 53-58.
