If you are like most Massachusetts residents, social media is a normal part of your life. When you wake up every morning, the first thing you do is check your Instagram. Then you click over to Facebook, scroll through a few comments sections and finally, before you hit the shower, you check your Snapchat. This is normal behavior…or is it? While there is nothing inherently wrong with using social media, HuffPost Life suggests that social media may be the cause of many recent divorce filings.
According to the report, an American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers study reveals that 81% of divorce attorneys saw an increase in the number of divorces in which parties cite evidence they found on social media. What about social media is causing people to call it quits?
For one, screen time is routinely getting in the way of facetime. Instead of using free time to discuss each other’s days, enjoy a romantic moment or even just watch a movie together, couples opt to be on social media. This kind of detachment eventually leads to emotional detachment, which is difficult to recover from.
Another reason social media leads to divorce is dishonesty about to whom a party talks. Social media allows parties to reconnect with individuals with whom they would otherwise never have had contact again. This includes exes, which many parties may try to hide from their spouses. Unfortunately, this type of dishonesty can and often does lead to affairs.
Social media also causes parties to compare their own lives to others. This type of comparison is harmful in just about any instance, but when you begin to compare your marriage to another seemingly perfect one, the weaknesses in your own marriage may become more obvious. Unfortunately for many couples, those weaknesses seem insurmountable.
Another surprising reason marriages fail because of social media is because parties share too much information with their followers. For instance, it is not uncommon for parties to take to social media to air a spousal grievance, discuss personal issues or express their discontent, all activities that can be hurtful and damaging to the union.
Finally, some parties get the “grass is always greener” symptoms when they see photos of their single friends out having a good time. This causes them to question whether they made a good decision to get married in the first place.
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