What’s your Facebook relationship status? Are you single, in a relationship, or is it oh-so-complicated? The advent of social media in general, and Facebook in particular, allows people in today’s society to keep others up to date on the details of their lives, including the details of their romantic relationships, with extreme ease. Some people really take advantage of this online platform by posting every detail of their lives for others to see. With regard to their romantic relationships, this might involve making their relationship status visible, or by posting photos or updates highlighting their coupled status. Others are less likely to engage in this sort of online over-sharing. A while back, I wrote a blog post that focused on exactly this issue: who is more versus less likely to disclose their relationship status on social media. For this month’s post, I wanted to focus on something a bit different: how does making your relationship status visible, and/or disclosing details about your relationship, on social media relate to how you feel about your relationship, how other people think you feel about your relationship, and how other people feel about you.
Let’s start with the first issue: how does relationship-related visibility and information posted on Facebook relate to individuals’ satisfaction with their relationships? This seems to be a fairly straightforward issue. Survey studies, including longitudinal studies that track individuals’ Facebook use and relationship satisfaction over time, have demonstrated that having a romantic relationship that is visible on social media predicted higher levels of relationship satisfaction and closeness (Saslow, Muise, Impett, & Dubin, 2012). Specifically, among married individuals, having a profile picture on their Facebook page that included their romantic partner (actual Facebook profiles were downloaded with participants’ permission) was associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction and closeness. Additionally, in a daily diary study that tracked participants over a period of two weeks, individuals were more likely to share information about their romantic relationships on Facebook on days when they felt more, versus less, satisfied. Of course, these studies simply look at the associations between relationship visibility and relationship satisfaction – we can’t assume that relationship satisfaction causes people to post more about their relationships on Facebook or vice versa -- but there does seem to be a tendency for especially happy people in their relationships to also make their relationships visible to others.
Interestingly, other people seem to pick up on this. Recent research has demonstrated that others perceive us as having more satisfied and more committed relationships to the extent that our relationships are visible on social media (Emery, Muise, Alpert, & Le, 2014). Specifically, the researchers examined whether individuals in romantic relationships a) had a profile photo on Facebook that included their romantic partner, and b) listed their Facebook relationship status. They found that individuals whose relationship were visible in both ways were perceived as being more satisfied and more committed in their romantic relationships that individuals whose relationships were only visible in one way or not at all; and, individuals whose relationships were visible in one way were perceived as being more satisfied and committed than individuals whose relationships weren’t visible at all. Importantly, the researchers also assessed the actual relationship satisfaction and commitment of the individuals whose profiles were being assessed and found that perceived satisfaction and commitment corresponded well with individuals’ self-reports of their satisfaction and commitment. This means that the perceivers’ ratings mapped onto individuals’ actual feelings regarding their relationships quite well.
So far, we’ve figured out that if we are are happier in our relationships, we are also more likely to make our relationships visible on social media. Additionally, other people seem to also think we’re happier in our relationships to the extent that we make them visible. However, beyond simply making our relationship status apparent on Facebook through the actual status function or through our profile photos, we can also use Facebook as a place to tell others more intimate details of our relationships. Specifically, people can vary in the extent to which they post status updates that focus on their relationships. Researchers have recently focused on what high versus low levels of relationship-relevant disclosures, in addition to relationship visibility, on Facebook mean for the way others perceive our relationships – and us!
Specifically, undergraduates were asked to look at fictitious Facebook profiles that were ostensibly of other undergraduates in romantic relationships that included a) a profile photo of an individual or a couple, b) relationship status information or no information, and c) status updates that varied in terms of how much information they disclosed about the relationship (Emery et al., 2014). In one condition, the statuses contained no relationship information, in another they contained a small amount of relationship information (e.g., “I love my girlfriend.”), and in another they contained highly disclosing relationship information (e.g., Pining away for Jordan…I just love you so much I can’t stand it!:, Emery et al., 2014, pg. 4). The researchers then examined how satisfied and committed participants thought the Facebook users were and rated how likable they found the Facebook users.
As in the previous study, the researchers found that more relationship visibility (profile photo and relationship status) was associated with greater perceptions of relationship quality. Additionally, greater relationship visibility was associated with likeability – the fake Facebook users with profile photos including their partners and a visible relationship status were seen as more likeable than those with only one form of relationship visibility or no relationship visibility. However, a very different picture emerged when the researchers examined the amount of relationship information disclosed in the fake Facebook users’ status updates (Emery et al., 2014). Although disclosing more relationship information (by pining away for Jordan in this case) was associated with perceptions that the Facebook users had high quality relationships, it was also associated with perceptions of the Facebook users as being less likeable. This suggests that there may be such a thing as the relationship “overshare.” It may be one thing to post a status update that you care about your partner, but another to share the nitty-gritty details of your relationship with the Facebook community.
All in all, we are more likely to let others on social media know we’re in a relationship to the extent that we’re happy in that relationship – and others seem to recognize that this is the case. Others also seem to associate relationship visibility with us being likeable people – as long as we don’t get carried away with the information that we share about our partners and relationships. Keep these findings in mind the next time you feel the desire to change your status or to post about your cuddly-snuggle-bear on social media.
Emery, L. F., Muise, A., Alpert, E., & Le, B. (2015). Do we look happy? Perceptions of romantic relationship quality on Facebook. Personal Relationships, 22(1), 1-7.
Saslow, L. R., Muise, A., Impett, E. A., & Dubin, M. (2013). Can you see how happy we are? Facebook images and relationship satisfaction. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 4(4), 411-418.
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