Even if the Social Media has some good features, they are not fulfilling their real purpose, which is to showcase reality in the field of love and relationships. Social Media may distort love and relationships by creating false ideals, unrealistic standards, and discomfiture/stereotypes. False ideals have led to a decline in love and relationships in the 21st century because of its representation in Social Media.
Constantly consuming media on relationships may lead us to believe that relationships are always fun, exciting, joyful, and heady. The trouble is, most of our ideas about relationships are coming from media – whether we want them to or not. Often, we pick up what we are seeing on the media and decide our relationships could look that way, they would just focus on Jesus instead.
As Dr. Lisa Firestone writes, Often, we waste our time worrying about how our partner feels toward us, or about what a relationship looks like on the outside. While being loved by another feels great, we can only truly experience the feelings we have of loving that other person, and not the feelings that this person has of us. It is as though we have two sides: a side that is hopeful and inquisitive, and one side that believes that romantic love may be difficult to sustain. On the other side, though, we are pretty cynical as well, as to whether or not love will survive the test of time.
In discussing romantic relationships, Margaret E. Morris highlights how sharing images through Social Media also feels like a complementary means of communication. In romantic relationships in which couples are separated by a large distance, or must frequently travel to work, Social Media may help them feel as though they are a part of one anothers daily lives, even while separated. Many teens who are in relationships see Social Media as a place to feel more connected to the daily contours of their significant others lives, to share emotional connections, and to let their significant other know that they care – though these sites may also contribute to feelings of jealousy or uncertainty over a persons relationship stability.
Some 65 percent of boys who have experienced relationships using Social Media agreed that these sites made them feel more connected with what was going on in their significant others lives (compared to 52 percent of girls). In contrast, using Social Media may result in lower-quality face-to-face time spent with loved ones, as well as a decrease in relationship satisfaction.
Reduced Quality Time and Relationship Satisfaction:
Excessive Social Media use may have negative effects on quality time, lead to conflicts, and decrease relational satisfaction – whether or not a relationship is romantic. It can even become troubling when a partners internet time starts changing a relationships dynamics.
In other words, if you feel like your relationship is being negatively affected by social media, you are not being dramatic, in fact, it is.
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