Social Media and Couples: What Are the Important Factors for Understanding Relationship Satisfaction?

Abstract

The current study sought to examine specific Facebook behaviors, related to one's relationship and their association with relationship satisfaction. Data were collected from 115 undergraduates who were in a relationship and had an active Facebook account. Participants completed a number of measures focused on their relationship and gave the researcher access to their Facebook profiles to record the frequency of all posts (comments and status updates), pictures, tags, and likes from the previous two weeks. Each of these behaviors was then coded as relationship-specific (involving one's partner) or not. Descriptive statistics were calculated for each relationship-specific Facebook behavior. A number of participants did not include relationship information on their Facebook page. Only relationship status and having one's partner in a profile picture were significantly associated with relationship satisfaction. The current study is the first of its kind to examine the association between relationship-specific Facebook behaviors and relationship satisfaction, beyond that of one's relationship status or profile photo alone. The results of this study provide an initial glimpse into the specific relationship-oriented behaviors that individuals engage in on social media. Furthermore, the results provide guidance on macro- versus micro-analysis of online behavior for other researchers who are examining social media and couples' relationships.