Today’s era of Facebook and Instagram has made us more inclined than ever to post pictures online about our lives and relationships. If we don’t post something on Facebook it’s like it didn’t happen.
Social media can be seen as a giant town square where people announce what is going on in their lives. Bonds can be easily formed this way because of shared experiences, so it makes sense that we post only the highlights of our lives that are worthy to be shown to the curious and (judging) public eye.
Social media has become a place for competition; a scale to see where we stand compared with others. It is not surprising that we became so addicted to this instant gratification that social media provides.
We paint a picture of ourselves in a way in which we want others to see us. Our relationships are also a part of this picture. However normal it is to proudly present to the public the person we are dating, there is a correlation between how satisfied we are in the relationship and how much we post about it on social media.
Below are few reasons for this:
You can start feeling better about some part of your life if you think that other people see it differently.
Basically, if you don’t feel satisfied with something in your relationship, you start to seek other ways of emotional fulfillment. The most common one is trying to make others see your relationship like you want it to be. This way you can start feeling happier if you think you’ve made other people see your relationship happily. In psychology this is called ‘projection’, i.e. we project other people’s thoughts and emotions as our own – if we think they think we have a happy relationship, we’ll start believing in it too.
When you are in a happy relationship, you are more present in it.
This means that you would naturally forget all about your phone and checking your profiles on social media. This is because you are so happy and emotionally fulfilled in your relationship that these things like posting photos on Facebook or Instagram don’t cross your mind. You are so present in your relationship and enjoying every moment that you don’t want to be distracted in any way.
Every couple in a happy relationship never makes public their struggles and intimate arguments.
Posting about every problem you have in your relationship has not solved anything yet. Contrary, you can make the situation even worse if you let your friends and family know about all the times you have been on your last legs.
If you feel validated in your relationship, there is no need for seeking this feeling externally.
In other words, you don’t feel the need to constantly post updates about your relationship on social media. You are happy when you are with your partner, not when you post about it.
Happy couples are not together in order to prove something.
No. They are together because they want to be together. Not because they want their partner to make them feel more attractive, loveable, or worthy to be in a relationship with. You can’t rely on your partner to help you feel some emotional void that you have.
In conclusion, people who are not dependent on social media are reported to be happier. Instead of spending their time scrolling through Facebook and looking at other people’s lives – they are actually living and enjoying their own life to its fullest.
They appreciate every moment of it. Also, instead of comparing their relationship to others – they focus on their partner more and appreciate the relationship for what it is.
In fact, depression is linked to excessive use of social media. If we are constantly looking into other people’s lives we can start feeling like something is missing from ours even when this is usually not the case.
Furthermore, uncontrollable social media use is associated with a lack of mental health.
The list goes on and on. The point is that no good comes of our dependence on social media. This need to feel validated by others on daily basis is dangerous and can even affect our relationships in a negative way.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.
