“Single.” “It’s complicated.” “In a Relationship.” “Married.” “Domestic partnership.” Does this sound familiar?
These are just a couple options of what your relationship status could be on Facebook but does that honestly matter? Is it that important for all of your 1,000 Facebook friends whom you don’t know to who you’re dating or that “it’s complicated?”
Honestly, I hate everything about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all those social media kind of things but I do have them. The reason I hate them is because of ruined relationships that I have seen. I am not saying it was easier way back when, but life was simpler.
While talking to my grandmother, she talks about when she was younger and about “going steady” and I can’t help but laugh because I can never imagine saying I’m going steady with someone. She has also talked about how the war brought people together, some exchanging class rings as a sign of commitment. I guess maybe one could argue that changing your Facebook status is the modern way of exchanging class rings.
Simple things that happened in our everyday life, such as pressing “Like” on someone’s picture is now enough to make someone’s spouse jealous, even cause a fight or a breakup. That would have never happened without Facebook.
Now I know fights go on in relationships every day and a lot of the time it doesn’t have to do with any social media at all. Things like cheating went on with or without social media, but it seems to make things easier.
Facebook gets a bad rap, especially from shows such as Catfish, but we all know it didn’t cause anything to happen, it just makes things more convenient to do (and perhaps easier to catch).
I know I have been talking about all of the negatives that come along with it but I know that there are positives too.
Today, about 20 percent of relationships start online. Without social media this would never happen. These people deserve the same amount of happiness but just happen to find it in a different way. I personally would never be able to talk to anyone online that I didn’t know; it freaks me out knowing that there are crazy people out there in the world. But hey, whatever makes you happy makes you happy.
Love is hard, and I am not one to tell people how to find love these days but I believe that social media does ruin relationships.
