Is Facebook Bad for Your Relationships – Taking a Break Before a Break Up
With Facebook being among the most popular platforms in its category, social media has for years been on the receiving end as far as relationship health is concerned. Statistics from 2021 actually indicated that the average American spends approximately 33 minutes each day on the giant, Mark Zuckerberg-invented social app or platform.
But what impact do your activities or the time spent on FB have on your personal or intimate relationships? Should you take more breaks to prevent breakups or avoid hurting your relationships? Let’s find out below.
Social Media Can Impact Your Relationships Negatively
Besides just Facebook, there’s a mountain of evidence that social media sites like Instagram and Tiktok can indeed impact relationships negatively, and in more than a few ways.
Remember, these social channels literally let you interact with anyone from any part of the globe. They also double up as search engines, where you can search literally anything or anyone you feel like.
Common Ways Facebook Can Hurt Your Relationships
Spending Too Much Time on Facebook:
Many people visit social media platforms when they need to kill boredom, make new connections, explore the world, chit-chat with a friend from high school, or just have some fun. Some even do it for business purposes.
But if you’re spending inexplicably too much of your time on Facebook, especially when you’re supposed to be with your SO, one thing is for sure. As studies indicate, your activities could be deleterious to your relationship, enough to cause cheating or a breakup.
Could It Be A Mental Concern?
More time on social media could also be a fight-or-flight response to a threatening occurrence that causes a mental condition like depression, anxiety, ADHD, or PTSD. As outlined in a piece covering Roots’ mental health disorders programs, these may usually be accompanied by a range of symptoms, including:
- Mood swings
- Erratic thinking
- Helpless feelings
- Irritability
- Isolation or social withdrawal
- Long-term anxiety
Bad Influence Is All Over:
Over time, and as you build your list of friends, it is not so unusual to attract and interact with people with indecent intentions, poor advice, or bad influence. Moreover, Facebook is home to some of the most enticing content in the form of videos, images, quotes, text, products, and services.
Some of these could have the potential to change one’s beliefs, manipulate their thoughts, and even start seeing their own partners as unequal in one way or the other.
Unfriending and Un-following:
Perhaps due to some of the factors above, peer pressure, and the drive for self-actualization, it is also not uncommon for people to unfriend, unfollow, or block their significant others on social platforms after a slight misunderstanding.
Using Facebook to Improve Your Relationship
On the flip side of the coin, Facebook is a global platform that virtually lets you meet and interact with just about anyone. It can actually have numerous benefits to your social, physical, and mental wellness. Best of all, Facebook can help you meet someone who turns out to be your lifetime partner; if not help you improve your current relationship.
Discipline:
It might take some discipline and effort, but the above-mentioned issues are fairly easy to avoid. All you may have to do is find out why you’re always on Facebook, especially with your partner or loved one around.
Say no to flirting DMs while at it! And for what it’s worth, you can even access and browse Facebook anonymously these days by limiting access and restricting your profile more.
Facebook Break:
At the very least, taking a tech break – especially from social channels – can go a long way in salvaging your relationship. It creates more time to bond with your SO, which significantly helps in keeping your relationship healthy. It may also create the perfect opportunity to solve differences that could otherwise cause a ravenous storm over paradise.
Reconsider Your FB Friends:
You may also have to be careful about the friendships you accept on your favorite social platform, consider the influence that your current friends have on you, and the value they add to your life.
Go ahead and unfollow influencers who post content without considering the consumer’s relationship health. You can even seek friendship from relationship counselors or therapists instead, whose list is literally endless on Facebook.
Facebook is inarguably more beneficial than it is distractive. It actually requires a sheer amount of discipline for any user compared to the internet, which actually powers it and other social platforms. Whether or not it’s bad for relationships might ultimately depend on the user!
