Social networking is incredibly popular. While it used to be mainly aimed at college students, adults of all ages now use it extensively. However, one study did find that there’s a potential drawback, as the use of social networking sites has been linked to unhappiness in marriage and to divorce.
The study that discovered the link was published in a journal called “Computers in Human Behavior.” They looked at the amount of Facebook accounts in each state and the divorce rates. They also looked at studies where people were asked about how often they used social media and how happy their were in their marriages.
They examined multiple different models, but researchers always came to the same conclusion: The more people used social media, the less happy they were in their marriages. It also showed that divorce was more likely as usage increased.
For example, they found that there was a 20 percent increase in the amount of people using Facebook on an annual basis. They looked at this with a few different models and found that the rise corresponded to a rise in divorce rates that ranged from 2.18 percent on the low end to a 4.32 percent on the high end.
Experts did note that more studies would have to be done, but their findings were very consistent, demonstrating that the use of social media sites like Facebook could be responsible for ending marriages. They do want to do more studies to confirm these findings.
If you’re going through a divorce, it’s important to know what you should do from a legal perspective in Texas, and it’s also important to think about how you use social media at this time.
Source: CNBC, “Social networking linked to divorce, marital unhappiness,” Everett Rosenfeld, accessed April 27, 2016