Young adults' romantic investment behaviors on social media

Abstract

AbstractAccording to Rusbult's (1980) investment model, relationships are built and maintained through continual investment in one partner over potential alternative partners. Social media have continued to become more integrated into people's personal lives, with romantic relationship processes often unfolding in this new landscape. A large body of extant literature has explored how social media influence ongoing romantic relationships, but less is known about how social media facilitate relationship transitions (i.e., initiation, dissolution) and associated investment behaviors. In a large and diverse sample (N = 1521), we examine young adults' (18–29 years) social media investment behaviors around the beginnings and ends of their relationships, with a particular focus on how gender, age, and sexual orientation influence behaviors such as posting and removing of images with partners, following and un‐following partners and members of partners' social networks, direct messaging, and commenting on partners' posts. Our results suggest that men and sexual minorities more often engage in investment behaviors earlier in the relationship and after relationship dissolution. However, women and sexual minorities more often engage in disinvestment behaviors after dissolution, including removing traces of an ex‐partner from one's page and blocking them on social media entirely. Our results provide further understanding of how young American adults are enacting each relationship stage on social media and how the intersection of social media and romantic relationships differs by demographic factors.