Everyone has at least one Facebook friend who shares a bit too much about his or her partner on the social network. No matter how much you like your friend, posting photo after photo of romantic outings or writing status updates about how in love they are or how much they've changed each other's lives gets pretty old after a while. And now, there's one more reason to be jealous of those who over-share about their relationships on Facebook.
A recent study from Albright College in Reading, Penn. has found that Facebook users who are happier in their romantic relationships are more likely to post couple photos, details of their relationship and cute messages on their partner's timeline. Albright Assistant Professor of Psychology Gwendolyn Seidman and now-alumna Amanda Havens obtained the results of the study by surveying Facebook users in romantic relationships. The survey also measured the "Big Five" personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
That all makes sense. If you're proud of and satisfied with your relationship, of course you're going to want to let the world know about it. However, the study found some more "nefarious" results that weren't so obvious.
Those who have high levels of Relationship Contingent Self-Esteem, or RCSE, are also going to post more about their relationships. This means that people whose self-esteem depends on the quality of their relationship felt the need to brag about their romance to others or track their partner's activity on Facebook.
"These results suggest that those high in RCSE feel a need to show others, their partners and perhaps themselves that their relationship is 'OK' and, thus, they are OK," Seidman said.
Another surprising result was that extroverts, who are generally more active Facebook users, don't check up on their partners' Facebook activity or post messages on their timelines as much as introverts.
However, if you want your friends to still like you, you might not want to overdo it on the PDA on Facebook. Another study found that the more others think your relationship is going well, the less they will like you. The Internet makes a cynical bunch of us all.
Earlier this year, we learned that Facebook may know more about your relationships than you even do. The Facebook Data Science team found that users have a huge spike in interactions on the social network the day their relationship status changes to "single," to the tune of a 225 percent increase, followed by 50 to 75 percent increased use. The Facebook Data Science team also found that there is a steady increase in posts between two people as they approach the day they officially become a couple. And then the number of posts they send to each other decreases once the relationship begins. Facebook may even be able to predict how long your relationship will last as one study found that couples with more mutual friends were more likely to stay together.
Love makes fools of us all. Good thing we have Facebook to keep our love lives in check.
