Jealousy And The Facebook Element
Social Networking enables seeds of Doubt in our Relationships
As humans we can't help ourselves.
Just as tweens pour over the gossip magazines looking for the next piece of "it" news, if you can call it that, we scan over our partner's Facebook page. Eyes seeking for wall posts or tagged photos that might reveal unseen parts of their lives.
Spot an attractive new stranger on there and you're suddenly clearing the morning to consider surreptitious meetings between the two during time they share breezy flirtations, plan their nest tryst and snicker about your abilities in bed.
The green-eyed relationship monster has injected itself with an utmost potent steroid called the internet.
jealousy may be among our most primal human emotions. but we've witnessed its digital revolution with modern social networking sites that openly give access to the once private lives of our lovers.
social network sites such as Facebook have changed the nature of public and private in the sense that much more information is available to individuals about thier partner's relationships and interactions then they would have been with other online or offline methods of communication
Facebook and Jealousy
The ability to be a fly on the wall in a lover's digital age offers unparalleled insights into their private social interactions, connections with previous partner, mysterious new friends and exceedingly touchy co-workers.
it's like they left their email open, and your job is to avoid reading it.
The guy Shawn from accounting she mentions on occasion isn't just an anonymous nerd anymore.
Now, he's a handsome Brad Pitt lookalike who skis,skydives and plays Guitar Hero on the side and appears, by his countless photo albums,to party with super models.
Her regular after-work drink meetings with him take on an entirely different sense of urgency in light of the clandestine revelations. you wouldn't have given him a second thought before Facebook. Now you're investing in binoculars and high-tech surveillance equipment.
FaceBook Friends with Exes
Like most people I have been curious about a partner's (Facebook) post or wondering about their relationship with a new un-known friend. Personally I think Facebook is a medium by which people are exposed to many of the common triggers of jealousy.
These include:
- Another person showing interest in your partner
- Your partner showing interest in another
- A partner interacting with past romantic/sexual partners
- ambiguous scenes involving a partner
Simply put there's just enough information on a typical Facebook page to incite curiosity, yet not enough to tell the entire story
Facebook Induced Jealousy
It seems the more jealousy triggering information they find, the greater their obsession with finding more buried in the messages and photo galleries. it becomes a self fulfilling path to agony.
Against all enlightened wisdom, we are moths inescapably drawn to the open flame.
This may be a direct attribute to a related statistic:
" 77 percent of people polled said the remained friends with their exes on Facebook"
More fuel to the fire, having the ability to comment to mutual friends it's the modern equivalent of ending a serious relationship by mentioning your intentions and assuming the word will eventually reach them.
Facebook has made us all insecure... if we give into the jealous temptations
