Everyone knows that relationships take work. One recent concern regarding the maintenance of healthy relationships is an overall increase in social media use. Social media sites, like Facebook, have a way of doing excessive and unnecessary harm to relationships.
Whether the relationship that suffers from a site like Facebook was doomed before the site became mainstream is certainly a valid question, but there is no doubt that Facebook can have a direct, negative effect on a relationship.
Before Facebook, it took a much greater effort to keep in touch with people from past relationships. Some Facebook users find it thrilling to reconnect with their first crush from grade school or their old college hook-up. Whereas relationships like these would otherwise be impossible in years past, they are now possible with social media. Reconnecting with an old flame is thrilling, yet deceiving, as the person on the other end is most likely putting their best face forward. It is quite easy to ignore why the relationship never lasted when bombarded with images that bring back old, good memories. The temptation of a forbidden love with a past connection may be too much for the Facebook user to handle. There is a fine line between fact and fantasy.
One of the other mistakes Facebook users make is to compare themselves and their relationship to that of other people that they are casually in contact with on the social media site. Again, most of the people on Facebook are only displaying a small part of their lives. What they are not showing is the other, very real, side of their relationship.
Obviously there are those Facebook users who find themselves drawn to the site more than the average person. If cancelling the Facebook account is not an option, there are other ways to limit usage. Recognizing that in order to maintain a healthy relationship requires a limited use of Facebook may be enough for some people to spend less time on Facebook and more time with their significant other. Planning a schedule, and sticking to it, can help to limit the amount of time spent on the site.
When it comes down to it, being miserable in a relationship because of Facebook is simply not worth it. If the time spent on Facebook is instead spent on maintaining a healthy relationship, the payback of a healthy relationship is the best reward of all.
