FaceBook And Romantic Relationships - Essay Example

? FACE BOOK AND ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS Face book and romantic relationships Technological advancement has taken a great influence towards barely every aspect of human life in the modern day. Communication in particular has received a great revolution using modernized means of communication especially by use of internet and social media. A recent debate over a local radio station caught my attention when the discussion revolved around a woman who felt cheated and silly over a love affair that started over the face book and hardly lasted two months before she invited the lover (man) into her place of residence. She only learnt that after engaging in romance that the man left her, no more communication while she could easily identify that the man was now hooked up in another romantic relationship over the social media. The phone calls that were made into the studio in contribution to the motion surprised me the more on how many people fall into the trap of exposing their romantic lives over the social media and only to fall prey to such ‘romantic stalking’ persons whose intention is only to have personal gratification and nothing of a long lasting relationship. This therefore gave me the challenge to research deeper into the long lasting effects that Face book, among many other social media has to persons especially concerning romantic relationships. This paper hence intends to evaluate the impacts of face book to personal lives and how such negative effects can be dealt with the ever-increasing need to have face book for ease of communication and keeping circles of friends. Justification Social media has been acknowledged in the past for the positives it brought about in people’s lives especially in matters of communication and sharing of information. It was highly accepted that face book in particular has attracted very many people who find it cheap and convenient manner to keep circles of friends when compared to the means that were in use previously such as through mails, print and digital media as well as through telephone services. Face book was credited of communicating with millions of friends worldwide through just the click of the mouse at once convenience. Equally, receiving feedback from face book is such an easy task as compared to the other communication ways hence the ease of adoption (Vitak, Ellison and Steinfield, 2011). Nevertheless, despite such numerous advantages in use of face book, the social plat form has continuously faced critiques because of the increasing negatives that are stemming from the same. For instance, the increasing exposure of personal information through posting personal profiles online increasingly put people into threats such as security and such. People are increasing becoming targets of cyber crime due to the personal information that one shares on the platform. One emerging trend is the use of face book to establish and maintain romantic relationships. Technology has been blamed on failing to conceal personal sensitive information and as such exposing such an individual to high risks. Therefore, this study would be timely in that it would look into detail the impact of face book on personal lives with special attention to romantic relationships and evaluate probable solutions to such shortcomings (Flynn, nd; Raalte et al, nd). Literature review There are various studies that have been done in regard to the revolution that face book and such social platforms have brought in people’s lives. This section therefore looks into some different studies that have been done in the past and establish their contributions to the study topic under analysis. Utz and Beukeboom sought to understand the effect of social media into romantic relationships concerning happiness and jealousy. They pointed out that social network sites expose too much of individual romantic relationship information which has both positive attributes (happiness) as well as negative attributes (jealousy) associated with it. The emotional traits associated with social networks have a capacity to have an influence in personal esteem. The negative influences of social networks were shown to negatively affect individual’s esteem, which produced long-lasting effects to the person. To others, this has the capacity to increase the jealous and increase the monitoring tendencies, which equally leads to the question of how positive the media is. The study therefore concluded that the exposure of romantic information for persons by the social media might produce satisfaction in some instances through communicating personal status in romance while at the same time produce negative effect on lowering self-esteem (Utz and Beukeboom, 2011). On a different study, Lindner sought to understand the tendency of ‘stalking’ on face book and the reaction to romantic jealous, happiness as well as insecurity. Through a qualitative analysis found out some relation between the tendency of people to lurk on face book and emotional satisfaction. Decrease in emotional/relational satisfaction was seen to increase the likelihood of individuals to lurk as well as engage in such behavioral jealous. Many of the respondents who revealed heightened insecurity showed that they adopted face book for maintenance of such relations (Lindner, 2012). Bowe studied the effect of some particular face book rituals that are often adopted by persons in communication of their romantic relations. The study concentrated on identifying the emotional effects that such public display of affection would have on the offline world. The study found out that face book forms a basic platform that is increasingly being used for expressing how personal romantic lives are carrying on, as well as being used as an avenue for ‘marking’ territories and exhibiting emotional superiority (Bowe, 2010). The study therefore affirmed that face book would be positively used in matters of maintaining long-lasting relations. Face book and other social platform have equally served as platforms through which romantic partners interact. However, complications are sited as to how the partners manage privacy in information being shared, relational needs as well as keeping pace with accountability of friends. Zhao, Sosik and Cosly evaluated the complications arising from the interaction of romantic partners from the online platforms. Through customized survey from a group of twenty face book users, it became apparent clear that management of information brings about strife and tensions especially as relates to managing various relationships simultaneously. The study affirmed the necessity of people adopting the social media wisely and appropriately in order to avoid possible strife from internal relations as well as tensions from outside as brought about by interactions on the social media platform (Zhao, Sosik and Cosly, nd). Solutions to the adverse effects that are continuously being suffered from the use of face book in romantic relations have been sought extensively though efforts are yet to lead to a universally acceptable solution. In a study to evaluate the potential of closing personal accounts from the face book platform in order to safeguard romantic relationship, some university students were found to had adopted the mechanism. The study found that in the neo liberal age as we are living in today, there are increased face book promiscuity cases, which increases heartbreaks. Through extensive interviews, the study found an increasing tendency of people opting to deactivate own face book accounts in order to comply with ethical convictions which judge them against such vices that are associated with face book as promiscuity (Gershon, 2011). Thesis statement This study therefore seeks to establish the most appropriate ways that face book users would exploit to overcome the shortcomings that they face especially in relation to establishing and maintaining sound romantic relationships through face book. Works cited Bowe G. (2010). “Reading romance: the impact Facebook rituals can have on a romantic relationship”. Journal of comparative research in Anthropology and sociology, 2010, 1(2); 61-77. Flynn G. (nd). “How Facebook is ruining Your Romantic Relationships”. Retrieved from:< http://people.umass.edu/curtis/academics/researchtoolbox/pdfs/Genevieve_Flynn_LitReview.pdf> Gershon I. (2011). “Un-Friend My Heart: Facebook, Promiscuity, and Heartbreak in a Neoliberal Age”. Special collection: The ethics of disconnection in a neoliberal age. Retrieved from:< < http://www.academia.edu/266205/Un-Friend_My_Heart_Facebook_Promiscuity_and_Heartbreak_in_a_Neoliberal_Age> Lindner K. A. (2012). “The Effects of Facebook “Stalking” on Romantic Partners’ Satisfaction, Jealousy, and Insecurity.” Retrieved from:< https://dspace-prod-lib.cc.uic.edu/bitstream/handle/10027/9569/Lindner_Katherine.pdf?sequence=1> Raalte L. et al, (nd). “The Impact of Facebook on Relational Satisfaction: Joint Networks & Joint Activities”. Retrieved from:< http://www.academia.edu/1024497/The_Impact_of_Facebook_on_Relational_Satisfaction_Joint_Networks_and_Joint_Activities> Utz S. and Beukeboom C. J. (2011). “The Role of Social Network Sites in Romantic Relationships: Effects on Jealousy and Relationship Happiness”. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2011, 16; 511–527. Vitak J., Ellison N. B. and Steinfield C. (2011). “The Ties That Bond: Re-Examining the Relationship between Facebook Use and Bonding Social Capital”. Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences – 2011. Retrieved from:< http://www-personal.umich.edu/~enicole/VitakEllisonSteinfield2011.pdf> Zhao X., Sosik V. S. and Cosly D. (nd). “It’s Complicated: How Romantic Partners Use Facebook”. Retrieved from:< http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~danco/research/papers/zhao-its-complicated-chi2012.pdf> Read More