Facebook and infidelity: Part cause, part symptom
Checking Facebook once an hour, found a University of Missouri researcher, “predicted Facebook-related conflict, which then significantly predicted negative relationship outcomes such as cheating, breakup and divorce.”.
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Many times a week, Russell Moore talks with couples “who are in crisis because of an act of infidelity.”
And he’s done so for years, as a pastor, teacher, seminary dean and now head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
He says he “can’t think of a single recent instance of infidelity in which social media did not play some role.”
That fits with the notorious new study that ties heavy use of Facebook to breakups.
Checking Facebook once an hour, found a University of Missouri researcher, “predicted Facebook-related conflict, which then significantly predicted negative relationship outcomes such as cheating, breakup and divorce.”
That doesn’t mean Facebook is causing more relationship tensions. Moore doesn’t think “technology is to blame”; rather, “it accelerates opportunities for human depravity.” No kidding.
Just as cellphones made infidelity easier by letting would-be adulterers contact each other without the spouses knowing about it, so Facebook has put us in contact with a much wider group of acquaintances, expanding the possibilities for questionable connections.
But there’s more to it. Social networking also reminds you of the road not taken, of what you’re missing — the meals your friends are eating, the vacations they’re taking, the kitchen they’re remodeling. It also suggests an almost paralyzing array of choices.
In the Atlantic Monthly last year, Dan Slater warned, “Online romance is threatening monogamy.”
Men and women are just less willing to commit, because in the back of their minds they’re constantly aware of other possibilities beckoning. Hence the title of Slater’s piece: “A Million First Dates.”
One man told Slater of a woman he thought he was going to marry — and his reaction when she broke up with him instead: “It didn’t seem like there was going to be much of a mourning period, where you stare at your wall thinking you’re destined to be alone and all that. I was eager to see what else was out there.”
In other words, we’re reluctant to close off other life options even at the risk of losing the love of our life.
Also last year, Barry Cooper penned a more theological take on the problem in Christianity Today.
He wrote, “We are worshiping an idol. A false god. One of the Baals of our culture. His name is ‘open options.’ ” Cooper concludes, “The god of open options is also a liar. He promises you that by keeping your options open, you can have everything and everyone. But in the end, you get nothing and no one.”
Indeed, those other options often aren’t even plausible. Social media let us see other people’s lives at their best.
People post pictures of their exotic vacations and their exciting evenings out — but not so much about the mundane details of their mortgages, the kids’ orthodontist appointments and parent-teacher conferences.
“People are seeking to connect with their younger selves,” says Moore. They often forget, though, that their high-school flings have gotten older, too — since they’re not seeing that up close and personal.
But let’s not miss the obvious here, Laura Vanderkam points out. The author of “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast,” she studies how people spend their time.
She thinks “the key part” of the University of Missouri study “is the definition of excessive use — more than once an hour.”
Vanderkam warns, “Checking any Web site more than once an hour is going to start interfering with your real-world relationships.”
But is obsessively checking social media a cause or an effect?
As the Rev. Eric Andrews, a Paulist priest in Southern California, tells me, “If you need to seek connections and relationships online or [on] Facebook, it probably means something is not happening in [your] spousal relationship.”
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