How does social media provoke communication avoidance in relationships between partners and potential romantic interests?
Love interest? Just swipe right – thanks to social media you can now express your interest in someone with just a double tap or a quick swipe of your finger. How about being ignored, blocked, or ghosted – welcome to the negative side of techno-relationships. Emerging technology and increased number of social media applications have changed our romantic lives as we once knew them, but how does this effect the longevity and satisfaction of our relationships, does this ease of communication lead to avoidance of certain conversations? Research shows that the implication of technology into our romantic lives significantly impacts the way we form, maintain, and even extinguish romantic relationships. (Kwok & Wescott, 2020)
With constantly evolving technology and social platforms, are we becoming to content with the virtual and online basis of our intimate relationships? A study conducted by Telefonica suggests that the average smartphone users gets as many as 63.5 notifications per day, with this number of notifications making your phone ping on a daily basis, many people are likely to become overwhelmed or even frustrated by the constant distractions and alerts. This can lead one to detach from there phone completely or purely ignore notifications and conversations.
In a recent article, Cyberintimacy: A Scoping Review of Technology-Mediated Romance in the Digital Age, written by Ian Kwok and Annie B. Wescott, the pair explore Cyber-intimacy, a rather vague term which generally refers to sexual or intimate relationships, which are originally initiated or maintained via technology based communication. Throughout the article, the authors state that “Connecting online is now the third most likely way that individuals meet potential partners, with more than one-third of all marriages resulting from connecting online.” (Kwok & Wescott, 2020) Thus showing how evident this topic is throughout society.
Continuing with why I feel this question is relevant and worth investigating, the previous article also states that studies have found young adults who have grown up being surrounded by technology have a greater concordance between their online and real-life romantic lives, with one study even suggesting that many teenagers will consider sharing their passwords to social accounts, as an act or symbol of commitment to their relationship. (Kwok & Wescott, 2020) As a university student commencing my third year, I can confidently say that university is a great place to establish and build social relationships as well as romantic ones, therefore I feel as though this topic is relevant and timely to my audience inclusive of peers and other university students, many of which are being made to study remotely online, and communicate via social media. Thus, leaving me with the confidence that this topic is worth investigating, as there are many prior studies which have been conducted around/or conclusive of this topic, therefore showing interest into the question at hand.
As in every intimate relationship there are bound to be ups and downs, good days and bad, but how does social media and technology as a whole play into these scenarios. Unlike face-to-face conversations and arguments, social platforms offer an out that physical interactions do not, leading to communication avoidance, which can in the long term significantly impact one’s romantic interests or relationships. What is communication avoidance you may ask, well as we all know, avoidance is the practice of evading particular people, places, tasks, etc. whilst communication avoidance can range from a certain person deflecting difficult questions or serious topics, to completely cutting you off, or as myself and many of my peers would probably refer to as ghosting…
No one likes being ghosted but why does it occur so often and how has technology made it easier to avoid communication? Social media and texting have made the world of dating and relationships a difficult place for some, while others have been thriving of the ability to cut of conversations with ease. While an online conversation may start with a lot of potential and lead towards a romantic relationship, the conversation could go south quickly, with one person purely deciding they’re no longer interested or a comment being taken the wrong way, as the receiver is unable to determine the true intention behind the message without the use of facial expression and tone of voice, which we make use of via our face-to-face interactions, thus resulting in avoidance or ultimately being blocked completely.
Communication is a key aspect in maintaining a good relationship, whether that be a social or intimate relationship. Research suggests that communication or lack of, can be the downfall of many relationships, also reportedly being among one of the top reasons couples tend to divorce. The article Can texting be used to improve romantic relationships? —The effects of sending positive text messages on relationship satisfaction delves further into technology-mediated communication with a more positive approach, by investigating how texting can elevate individuals’ relationships and boost relationship satisfaction. Authors, Luo and Tuney state that due to the high frequency of cell phone owners, with three quarters of them being avid texters, it is reasonable to suspect that texting being a major way of communication, significantly impacts romantic relationships. (Luo & Tuney, 2015)
Finally, the article, How Social Media Alters Human Relationships: Mediated Communication, Techno-romantic relationships, Disembodied Love…. analyses expressions such as “relationships statuses”, “online”, and “in a relationship” following how these terms define the evolution of relationships established via social media and the internet. This article almost perfectly captures the nature of most online relationships with a comment articulating that “relationships on the internet somehow symbolize the escape from the burden and responsibility of the old style relationships.” once again affirming the loss of expectation to respond to a significant other, or romantic interest via text or social media, therefore confirming how communication avoidance has been provoked throughout developing technologies. (Kar, Kamaşak & Ertuğrul, 2021)
References:
Kar, A., Kamaşak, R. and Ertuğrul, F., 2021. How Social Media Alters Human Relationships: Mediated Communication, Techno-romantic relationships, Disembodied Love…., Available from: <://www.researchgate.net/profile/Altan-Kar/publication/341940119_HOW_SOCIAL_MEDIA_ALTERS_HUMAN_RELATIONSHIPS_Mediated_Communication_Techno-romantic_relationships_Disembodied_Love/links/5eda3e4492851c9c5e819d5c/HOW-SOCIAL-MEDIA-ALTERS-HUMAN-RELATIONSHIPS-Mediated-Communication-Techno-romantic-relationships-Disembodied-Love.pdf> Viewed 22 March 2021.
Kwok, I. and Wescott, A. B., 2020. Cyberintimacy: A Scoping Review of Technology-Mediated Romance in the Digital Age. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, Vol. 23, No. 10, pp.657-666. Available from: <https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2019.0764> Viewed 22 March 2021.
Luo, S. and Tuney, S., 2015. Computers in Human Behaviour: Can texting be used to improve romantic relationships? —The effects of sending positive text messages on relationship satisfaction. Volume 49. Pages 670-678. Available from: <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.035> Viewed 22 March 2021.
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