Social media leading to more divorces?

[BoMac]

Facebook cited in 20% of U.S. divorces - Yahoo! News

There are safeguards to prevent online contacts from ruining their relationships, he said.

One is not to engage in intimate conversation with someone who is not your spouse.

^ Well, that goes without saying and is rather obvious, if you ask me.

 

[Bonoa]

I didn't know there was a life beyond facebook!

 

[yolland]

"One spouse connects online with someone they knew from high school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook. Within a short amount of time, the sharing of personal stories can lead to a deepened sense of intimacy, which in turn can point the couple in the direction of physical contact."

This could be describing the wife of one of our neighbors, who left him unannounced about a month ago, taking her kids from a prior marriage as well as his car with her, for some guy she knew in high school (who was also married, and lives halfway across the country). I would say good riddance, since she always seemed pretty juvenile and irresponsible anyway, except we did a lot of informal babysitting for those kids and I know how badly losing the only stable parent figure they ever had (him) is going to hurt them. Nothing we can do about it though.

 

[lemonfly]

Web platforms like Facebook can be very dangerous if you are naïve and desperately looking for a "way out" of your current situation in life. They allow you to create a fantasy world and on a daily basis you are able to feed that fantasy until you do something foolish. When I was 22 (and in a very bad place in my life) I thought I had found "the one" through a site, I quit everything (my job, my grad studies) and moved to the other side of the world. Needless to say, once I met her in the flesh she wasn't what I imagined, I wasn't what she imagined, and I flew home within a week. Thankfully, I didn't leave a partner when I went so no one got hurt, but I can totally understand how Facebook (and the internet in general) can wreck relationships and families.

 

[mikal]

i think it's all about being responsible with it in a healthy marriage as well. my wife and i are happy, but like all couples, we've hit rough waters occasionally. we've always had an agreement to not post anything on Facebook regarding any disagreements or arguments we have. everything stays in house.

unfortunately, i've seen the opposite happen with many couples. simple comments like "OMG what a jerk" on a social network can make a bad situation much worse.

 

[kramwest1]

Isn't social media leading to more hook-ups and marriages, too? So, isn't this a net-neutral?

 

[Badyouken]

There was probably a similar article about the telephone / phonebook when it first came out.

Damn you, Bell!

 

[kramwest1]

There was probably a similar article about the telephone / phonebook when it first came out.

Damn you, Bell!

Don't forget the marriage/divorce spike in the '80s due to the pager.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I think if someone is dumb enough to conduct an affair using Facebook as a means of communication, they are dumb enough to have been caught by telephone records, receipts, and the usual shiz in the 'olden days'.

 

[yolland]

The point of the article wasn't that Facebook is evil and destructive and should never have been invented. Just that marriage counselors are noting that it's become another sadly common way for people to let others come between them and their partner without even realizing at first they're doing it.

 

[Dfit00]

The problem here is that people are posting their "other life" on Facebook. This has nothing to do with the evils of social networking, time consumed, etc.

 

[PhilsFan]

As technology evolves, one thing in this world will remain constant: stupid people will find ways to fuck it up.

 

[Dfit00]

How about making technology challenging and hard to understand instead?

"The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn't understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had." - Eric Schmidt.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

we've always had an agreement to not post anything on Facebook regarding any disagreements or arguments we have. everything stays in house.

unfortunately, i've seen the opposite happen with many couples. simple comments like "OMG what a jerk" on a social network can make a bad situation much worse.

Ugh, yes. My sister and I have complained about that, we've seen way, WAY too many people who feel the need to be all, "OMG DRAMA!" on there. There's venting, which is fine every now and again, and then there's airing dirty laundry.

That said, though...

I think if someone is dumb enough to conduct an affair using Facebook as a means of communication, they are dumb enough to have been caught by telephone records, receipts, and the usual shiz in the 'olden days'.

Agreed. It actually cracks me up sometimes at how easily some of these people slip up. Either they wanted to be caught, or karma just gave them a healthy kick in the butt.

Angela

 

[financeguy]

I honestly don't think this kind of carry-on occurs more frequently than, say 20 or 30 years ago, or if so, I'd be sceptical of the idea that social networking sites on the internet are to blame. I'd be more concerned that social networking sites can become a substitute for staying in touch with friends and building real relationships, especially for the lonely/introverted.

I can remember hearing several stories when I was a kid of neighbours' husbands walking out on them and hooking up with their secretaries or whatever, and this is in Holy Catholic Ireland, and years before social networking sites arrived on the scene. As a matter of fact now that I think of it, a girlfriend of mine when growing up, her husband walked out on her recently to hook up with a divorced American lady, and the internet was nothing to do with it: they'd met through work, at a conference of some sort.