Content uploaded by Zane Zheng
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Zane Zheng on Nov 10, 2022
Content may be subject to copyright.
Social Media and Romantic
Relationship: Excessive Social
Media Use Leads to Relationship
Conflicts, Negative Outcomes,
and Addiction via Mediated
Pathways
Skye Bouffard
1
, Deanna Giglio
1
, and Zane Zheng
1
Abstract
Social media provides a useful platform for people to share information, develop networks, and
connect with each other online. While social media allows one to foster relationships with ease, it
may pose challenges for individuals in a romantic relationship. Mounting evidence suggests that social
media use may have an adverse impact on relationship dynamics, largely due to reduced time and
attention for relationship partners. However, it remains unclear (1) how the increased use of social
media may lead to negative consequences of relationship quality; (2) how the increased use of social
media and negative relationship consequences together may trigger social media addiction; and (3)
whether there are psychological factors that may contribute to the mitigation of the negative
consequences. Here, we explored these issues by selecting Instagram (IG) as the target platform
because the unique feature of tracking objective time of usage within the IG app allowed us to more
accurately determine the length of IG usage. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we
found that increased IG usage reduced relationship satisfaction, which led to an increase in both
conflicts and negative outcomes. The sequential effects of reduced relationship satisfaction and
increased conflicts then triggered addictive use of IG. In contrast, tendency to make sacrifice for the
relationship partner in everyday life produced a positive effect on relationship satisfaction, which in
turn reduced the likelihood of conflicts, negative outcomes, and addiction. Taken together, we have
delineated pathways through which excessive social media use may detrimentally affect both rela-
tionship and personal well-being and identified sacrifice as a possible psychological factor to mitigate
the detrimental effects. We believe that these findings add to our understanding of the processes by
which social media influences romantic relationship and highlight the interactive effects of social
media and relationship on causing unexpected, adverse consequences.
1
Lasell University, Newton, MA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Zane Zheng, Department of Psychology, Lasell University, Newton, MA 02472, USA.
Email: zzheng@lasell.edu
Social Science Computer Review
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/08944393211013566
journals.sagepub.com/home/ssc
Article
2022, Vol. 40(6) 1523–1541
1524 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Keywords
social media use, relationship satisfaction, relationship conflicts, negative relationship outcomes,
social media addiction, sacrifice
Social media is a platform that enables individuals to connect with others and share content with
only a click of a button. With the prevalence of mobile devices in society, social media has rapidly
grown in popularity in recent years (Aparicio-Martinez et al., 2019). For instance, 89.4%of young
adults stated that they regularly used at least one social media platform in 2014, but that percent-
age increased immensely to 97.5%in 2016 (Villanti et al., 2017), indicating that social media may
have become an indispensable part of people’s routine lives. According to a 2019 Pew Research
Center survey, young adults aged 18–29 are the most important force behind the surge in social
media growth, accounting for a vast majority of online activity nowadays. Thus, it is crucial to
understand the influence of social media use on young adults’ psychological and emotional well-
being.
Young adults are at a time in their lives where they are developing self-identity and becoming
more socially active. This is an important time to gain new relationships while obtaining approval
from their peers (Yonker et al., 2015). Having access to social media can help connect with people
without requiring face-to-face contact, which is an enormously convenient way to expand social
networks (Nesi et al., 2018). Constructing one’s social identity through networking on social media
will in turn lead to an increase in one’s social capital that is instrumental to personal and professional
development in the long run (Ellison et al., 2007; Hu et al., 2014). Furthermore, through social
media, one may seek help and support from a wider group of people that would not otherwise be
attainable in daily life (Gunduz, 2017), which is beneficial for individuals eager to connect for
psychological and emotional reasons. Therefore, young adults’ inclination for, or even obsession
with, social media is a behavioral pattern consistent with their developmental stage that emphasizes
socialization.
One aspect of socialization that is profoundly influenced by social media pertains to developing
and maintaining romantic relationships. Partners in a committed relationship often seek behavioral
validation from each other on social media, which may lead to potential conflicts or negative
outcomes. For instance, declaring relationship status on social media reveals that the relationship
is moving toward higher commitment (G´abor et al., 2015). However, arguments can arise when one
partner does not want to disclose the status to his or her following, which can lead to problems for
overall relationship well-being (Papp et al., 2012). In addition, some social media platforms offer
features that allow users to view the exact time a recipient opened their message. This creates
reasons for jealousy and feelings of bitterness in users when not receiving a response from their
relationship partners in a timely manner (Vaterlaus et al., 2016). Furthermore, one may feel jealous
or resentful of their significant other over the number of likes and comments their partner has
received from others (Ridgway & Clayton, 2016). Even expectations for relationship validation can
put psychological pressure on the partner, wear on the partner’s self-esteem, and create trust issues
that may result in negative relationship outcomes such as infidelity (Peluso, 2007). Thus, social
media use presents obstacles to fostering an emerging relationship and poses challenges for sustain-
ing mature relationships.
Despite the well-documented effects of social media on relationship dynamics, one issue that has
been understudied is how the time spent on social media impacts relationship quality and prospect.
Young adults aged 19–22 approximately spend an astounding 9 hr on their cell phone daily (e.g.,
Roberts et al., 2014). If a person spends too much time on their phone, it would result in less time for
their significant other. Meanwhile, using social media is negatively perceived when a relationship
partner desires attention (Kelly et al., 2017). Less time and attention compromise the quality of
Bouffard et al. 1525
interactions between romantic partners, leading to a deterioration of overall relationship (Egeci &
Gencoz, 2006). In order to fully understand the way in which social media causes such deterioration,
however, we would first need to accurately characterize the length of social media usage before
studying its impact. Previous work exploring the issue of social media use has generally relied on
retrospective self-reporting, where participants either estimate or recall their time spent on social
media (e.g., Manvelyan, 2016; Utz & Beukeboom, 2011). Although self-reporting is a quick and
easy way to collect usage data, its accuracy and validity have been questioned (e.g., Clayton et al.,
2013; Goodman-Deane et al., 2016; Yacoub et al., 2018). To circumvent this issue, we have instead
opted to focus on one particular social media platform, Instagram (IG), for its usage monitoring
feature, where time of daily usage is automatically tracked for each IG account. The usage tracking
feature allowed us to objectively characterize the time of usage for each user, thereby representing a
better starting point for examining the impact of social media use.
The first question we attempted to address was the impact of increased IG use on three important
indicators of relationship quality: satisfaction, conflicts, and negative outcomes. Relationship satis-
faction plays a crucial role in various aspects of a person’s romantic life (Le et al., 2017), where
partners strive for reciprocity that enhances relationship satisfaction (Braun et al., 2018). When
people are satisfied with their partner, they are more likely to have increased communal strength
which can lead to increased feelings of authenticity and appreciation (Kogan et al., 2010). Over time,
satisfying relationship translates into happier and more motivated partners, which helps build higher
relationship quality and shape stronger relationship commitment (e.g., Lemay, 2016). In contrast,
when satisfaction begins to decline, partners may begin to suppress their emotions and desires,
which interferes with relationship closeness that subsequently leads to increased conflicts (Impett
et al., 2012). Lower relationship satisfaction is also linked to infidelity-related behaviors, including
emotional and sexual extradyadic interactions, for both unmarried (Shaw et al., 2013) and married
(Whisman et al., 2007) relationships. Consequently, existing evidence supports relationship satis-
faction as a predictor of both relationship conflicts and negative relationship outcomes such as
infidelity.
But to what extent is social media use linked to these indicators of relationship quality? Although
this question has not been thoroughly addressed in the literature, there are two lines of evidence that
offer some clues. First, technology use in general can adversely impact relationships. For instance,
individuals who are constantly distracted by their cell phones and ignoring their partners experience
less relationship satisfaction (Roberts & David, 2016). Participants who reported a higher degree of
technology interference in everyday life also reported lower relationship satisfaction and more
technology-related conflicts (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016). Couples who connect or interact mostly
through technology, known as digital dwelling, may run into a series of issues such as lack of
inhibition for problematic online behaviors (e.g., Hertlein, 2012). Second, above and beyond the
time and attention commitment issues caused by general technology use, social media use in
particular compromises various facets of relationship quality, such as creating emotional barriers
between partners (Christensen, 2018; Elhai et al., 2016; Pollet et al., 2011), distorting perceptions of
relationship reality (Anderson, 2005; Fox & Anderegg, 2014; Holmes, 2004), triggering stress and
escalating tensions (Arikewuyo et al., 2020; Fox & Moreland, 2015), and inducing extradyadic
behaviors (e.g., Clayton et al., 2013; McDaniel et al., 2017). Thus, if we consider the specific effects
of social media use on relationship quality, we would expect that social media use reduces rela-
tionship satisfaction, which then triggers both relationship conflicts (over social media use) and
negative relationship outcomes such as infidelity (through social media use).
Given the potential negative impact of social media use on relationship, our second, related
question was whether there are psychological factors that could mitigate the impact. Although
intervention is beyond the scope of this study, we sought to identify what would likely be producing
the opposite effects on relationship quality as social media use. One such factor that we explored was
1526 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
the willingness and tendency to sacrifice for the partner in a relationship. Empirical evidence has
suggested that despite the ambivalent emotions caused by the act of sacrifice (e.g., feelings of
frustration and pride at the same time), an individual’s willingness to sacrifice was positively
associated with both personal and relationship well-being (Righetti et al., 2020). The motivation
to genuinely sacrifice for a partner’s needs predicted positive emotions during the sacrifice and more
importantly, feelings of relationship satisfaction afterward (Kogan et al., 2010). In addition, will-
ingness to sacrifice is associated with stronger relationship commitment and better couple function-
ing (Van Lange et al., 1997). Overall, this means that for someone with a stronger tendency to
sacrifice, they would experience higher relationship satisfaction, which would in turn make them
less susceptible to relationship conflicts (over social media use) and to negative relationship out-
comes (through social media use).
Our last question concerned whether and how social media use and relationship quality would
together trigger social media addiction. Studies have shown that increased usage of social media is
associated with social media addiction (Donnelly & Kuss, 2016; Kircaburun & Griffiths, 2019),
likely because social media would enable users to receive online support and forget their reality
(Brailovskaia et al., 2019). This occurs, for example, when partners are no longer content with their
ongoing relationship and instead resort to online venues for seeking psychological and emotional
comfort. Previous work has indicated that social media opens up the opportunity to pursue alterna-
tive partners online, leading to lower relationship commitment (de Lenne et al., 2019; Drouin et al.,
2015). The low commitment may then give rise to negative relationship outcomes that fuel social
media addiction (e.g., Abassi, 2018). Alternatively (or additionally), the fear or suspicion of the
partner engaging in extradyadic behaviors online would trigger frequent conflicts over social media
use, which also decreases relationship commitment as a result of frustration and stress, causing
social media addiction.
In this study, we aimed to address these research questions through developing a structural
equation model, in order to elucidate the connections between social media (IG) use, sacrifice,
relationship quality, and addiction. We hypothesized that increased IG use would lead to lower
relationship satisfaction (Hypothesis 1) which would then lead to both increased conflicts (Hypoth-
esis 2) and more negative outcomes (Hypothesis 3). In other words, we expected that relationship
satisfaction would mediate the links between IG use and conflicts/negative outcomes (Hypothesis
4). On the other hand, we expected that tendency to sacrifice for the partner would enhance
relationship satisfaction (Hypothesis 5), which would then decrease both conflicts (Hypothesis 6)
and negative outcomes (Hypothesis 7). In other words, we expected relationship satisfaction to
mediate the paths between sacrifice and conflicts/negative outcomes (Hypothesis 8). Finally, we
expected the path between IG use and IG addiction to be sequentially mediated first by relationship
satisfaction, then by either conflicts (Hypothesis 9) or negative relationship outcomes (Hypothesis
10). We believe that our approach of employing objective data of IG usage and assessing all
constructs in the same model would allow us, for the first time, to clarify the crucial pathways
between social media use and key indicators of relationship quality, as well as to shed new light on
the possible preventative strategies in curbing social media addiction for relationship partners.
Methods
Participants
We recruited 285 college students (181 females; Mage ¼20; SD ¼1.7) from our university campus
using a convenience sample. After inspection, data from 51 participants were excluded from further
analysis, due to (1) incompletion of the study procedures or questionnaires (5%) or (2) not meeting
our criterion for relationship status (5%; see Relationship Status section) or (3) not accessing IG via
Bouffard et al. 1527
cell phone app (8%; see Instagram Usage section), leaving 234. Among these participants, 45%were
Caucasian, 25%were African American, 6%were Hispanic, 6%were Asian, and 18%indicated
other or multiple ethnic affiliations. All participants provided written consent for participation, and
all procedures were approved by our University Institutional Research Board.
Materials
Materials included six questionnaires that enabled us to measure multiple facets of IG usage and
relationship, plus a demographic survey. The questionnaires included (1) the Instagram Usage
Questionnaire, designed to evaluate both subjective and objective usage of IG; (2) the adapted Social
Media Disorder Scale (van den Eijnden et al., 2016), geared toward assessing IG addiction; (3) the
Instagram-related Conflicts Questionnaire, adapted and extended from Clayton et al. (2013) to
examine relationship conflicts arising from IG usage; (4) the Negative Relationship Outcomes
Questionnaire, adapted and extended from Clayton et al. (2013); (5) the Couples Satisfaction Index
(Funk & Rogge, 2007), used to evaluate relationship satisfaction; and (6) the Relationship Sacrifice
Test, designed to gauge whether participants would make sacrifice when their own self-interests are
in conflict with their partner’s interests in real-life scenarios.
IG usage. IG use was determined both subjectively and objectively. The subjective usage refers to a
self-report of IG use: “How often do you go on Instagram?”, where participants could respond on a
5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from always to never.
The objective usage refers to the logged time on IG under “Your Activity” in the IG app. As such,
it is important that participants in fact access their IG via their cell phone as opposed to other
devices. Twenty-three participants (or 8%) who do not access IG through cell phone app were
subsequently eliminated from data analysis.
The objectively tracked time provides users with their average daily time of usage, in minutes, on
IG. It also provides users with their daily time of usage over the past 7 days. Participants were asked
to report their daily average and also their daily usage over the past 7 days. In addition, given that
having a second IG account (known as “Finsta” or Fake Instagram) is increasing in popularity, it is
important to consider the time spent on this account as well. Therefore, participants were asked to
report their daily average and 7-day daily usage for their Finsta account, if any. The time of daily
average from these two accounts was then combined to represent the objective usage of IG for each
participant.
IG addiction. We employed the 9-item Social Media Disorder Scale (van den Eijnden et al., 2016) to
measure IG addiction, where we replaced the term “social media” with “Instagram” in all questions.
The adapted Scale included questions such as “During the past year, have you regularly found that
you can’t think of anything else but the moment that you will be able to use Instagram again?”
“During the past year, have you regularly felt dissatisfied because you wanted to spend more time on
Instagram?” and so on. Participants were asked to choose Yes or No for each question, and the total
number of Yes responses was used to index the degree of addiction for each participant.
IG-related conflicts. On the basis of Clayton et al. (2013)’s six-question survey for determining
Facebook-related conflicts, we modified and extended the questions to account for the features of
the IG platform (see Appendix A). Some of the questions were as follows: “How often do you
have an argument with your partner as a result of viewing friends’ Instagram profiles?” “How
often do you have an argument with your partner about direct messages to/from followers?”
Participants answered the questions on a 5-point Likert-type scale (Always,Often,Sometimes,
Rarely, and Never).
1528 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Negative relationship outcomes. We developed a questionnaire based on Clayton et al. (2013)’s three-
question survey for assessing negative relationship outcomes related to Facebook use (see Appendix
B), including questions such as “Have you physically cheated on your partner with someone you
interact with on Instagram?” “Have you considered and/or desired cheating on your partner with
someone you interact with on Instagram?” All questions were answered with Yes/No choices, with
the total number of Yes responses indicating the extent of negative relationship outcomes.
Relationship status. In order to ascertain participants’ relationship status, we asked in the demographic
survey, “Are you currently in a romantic relationship?” This question was followed with “If so, for
how long?” and “If not, when did your last relationship end?” These questions were mixed with
other neutral questions (such as “What is your first language?” and “Do you play any musical
instruments?”) to prevent overthinking about relationship that might bias the answers. For the
purpose of our study, we included only participants that are currently in a relationship or have been
in the last 12 months (Mlength ¼24.6 months, SD ¼19.5). As a result, 14 participants that failed to
meet this criterion were excluded from further analysis.
Relationship satisfaction. We adopted the Couples Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007) to
measure participants’ level of satisfaction in relationship. The Index includes 32 questions, and the
averaged score across these questions was used to represent each participant’s relationship
satisfaction.
Relationship sacrifice test. We have developed a scenario-based test as an ecological approach to assess
participants’ willingness to make sacrifice in real-life situations (see Appendix C). The real-life
scenarios on the Test required participants to make a choice that would either favor their own self-
interest or their partner’s given the situation. For example, one scenario reads:
It is a Friday night, and you and your partner have been staying indoors for the past two weeks. You
really want to go out to a bar and have a good time. Your partner seems hesitant, and would rather stay
inside, at home, for another weekend. How would you respond?
The two answer choices were A. Go out without your partner, and B. Stay at home with your partner.
It is clear that choice A would be in favor of the participant’s own desire while choice B would
involve making a sacrifice for the partner’s preference. There were four such scenarios on the Test,
and the total number of choices made in favor of the partner’s preference was then used to index the
tendency of relationship sacrifice.
Results
IG Usage
Eighty participants (or 34%of all participants) reported having a second IG account or Finsta. For
these participants, we compared the logged time of usage on both accounts and found that they spent
significantly more time on their primary account (Daily M¼31.5 min, SD ¼23.5) than on the
secondary/Finsta account (Daily M¼8.0 min, SD ¼15.8), t(79) ¼8.18, p< .001.
We then examined the variation in the pattern of usage by looking at the logged daily usage over
the past 7 days. There were in total 221 participants who reported complete 7-day usage data. The
time of usage on the most recent, or current day was generally much shorter, reflecting only the
portion of time of usage up to the point of data being reported on that day. Repeated-measures
ANOVA on the usage during the 6 days prior to the current day indicated no evidence for variation
Bouffard et al. 1529
over time, F(5, 216) ¼2.09, ns, Bayes factor B
01
¼37.94, suggesting a relatively stable within-
subjects pattern of IG usage (see Figure 1).
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
We assessed the hypotheses by conducting an SEM of the constructs. The partial least squares (PLS)
method for the SEM was adopted, through the SmartPLS 3 software (Ringle et al., 2015). The
PLS-SEM is a well-established modeling framework and has several advantages over covariance-
based statistics in dealing with potentially nonnormality of data and small/medium sample size. We
reported our results in a two-stage procedure including the measurement model and the structural
model, based on the recommended guidelines (Hair et al., 2013, 2019).
Measurement model. For the two constructs with Likert-style items, namely, Instagram-related con-
flicts and relationship satisfaction, we examined the measurement model to ensure item reliability,
internal consistency reliability, and convergent validity. As a result, we assessed item loadings,
composite reliability (CR), and the average variance extracted (AVE) for all items on each construct.
For item loadings, there were three items (Q3, Q4, and Q5) from Instagram-related conflicts and five
items (Q3, Q15, Q27, Q28, and Q31) from relationship satisfaction that failed to exceed the rec-
ommended value of 0.6 and were thus removed (Chin et al., 2008). For remaining items, measures of
loadings, CR, and AVE all met the required criteria (Hair et al., 2013), see Table 1.
We then assessed the discriminant validity, defined as the extent to which one construct can be
empirically differentiated from all other constructs in the same model. This was evaluated by using
the heterotrait–monotrait (HTMT) ratio of correlations (Henseler et al., 2015). Discriminant validity
is deemed problematic when HTMT values are high (e.g., > .85). As seen in Table 2, the constructs
in the present study indicated satisfactory discrimination.
Structural model. We explored the relationships between constructs through measuring the structural
model (Figure 2). We reported path coefficients (b) between constructs, tstatistics, pvalues, and
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Day1 Day2 Day3 Day4 Day5 Day6 Day7
(Current)
Lengt h of IG Usage ( Min utes)
Daily IG U sage Tracked In The IG A pp
Figure 1. The length of daily Instagram usage over a 7-day period is shown. Note. The “current” day indicates
the day on which data were collected. Error bars represent standard errors.
1530 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
variance (R
2
) via bootstrapping with a resample of 5,000 (Hair et al., 2013). In addition, we assessed
the model’s out-of-sample predictive power through the PLSpredict procedure as outlined in
Shmueli et al. (2019).
We found that the objective time of daily IG usage negatively predicted relationship satisfaction,
such that longer duration of IG usage was associated with lower relationship satisfaction, b¼.16,
t¼2.74, p¼.006, supporting H1. Conversely, sacrifice positively predicted satisfaction, where
participants who displayed a greater tendency to make sacrifice for their partners reported higher
relationship satisfaction, b¼.22, t¼3.63, p< .001, supporting H5. Regardless of whether attri-
butable to IG usage or sacrifice, relationship satisfaction negatively predicted both IG-related con-
flicts, b¼.31, t¼4.37, p< .001, and negative relationship outcomes, b¼.32, t¼4.90, p< .001,
suggesting that less (or more) satisfied relationship triggered more (or fewer) conflicts and negative
relationship outcomes, supporting H2 and H3 as well as H6 and H7.
Table 1. Construct Validity and Reliability.
Constructs Loadings CR AVE
Conflicts .709 .922 .666
Satisfaction .628 .980 .649
Note. Conflicts ¼Instagram-related conflicts; Satisfaction ¼relationship satisfaction.
Table 2. Discriminant Validity of Constructs.
Addiction Conflicts NegOutcomes Sacrifice Satisfaction IG Usage
Addiction
Conflicts 0.315
NegOutcomes 0.185 0.219
Sacrifice 0.087 0.164 0.203
Satisfaction 0.086 0.312 0.342 0.235
IG Usage 0.076 0.016 0.292 0.024 0.180
Note. Addiction ¼IG addiction; Conflicts ¼Instagram-related conflicts; NegOutcomes ¼negative relationship outcomes;
Sacrifice ¼relationship sacrifice; Satisfaction ¼relationship satisfaction; IG Usage ¼length of IG usage.
Figure 2. The structural model of all constructs with path coefficients and variance explained.
Bouffard et al. 1531
Mediation test. We tested the indirect effects of IG usage and sacrifice on conflicts, negative rela-
tionship outcomes, and IG addiction (see Table 3). As hypothesized, relationship satisfaction served
as a critical mediator that influenced the ways in which IG usage and relationship sacrifice affected
downstream relationship consequences. Specifically, relationship satisfaction mediated the effects
of IG usage and sacrifice on both conflicts and negative relationship outcomes. Longer IG usage
had a detrimental effect on relationship satisfaction which in turn produced higher conflicts, b¼.05,
t¼2.41, p¼.016 and more negative outcomes, b¼.05, t¼2.14, p¼.032, supporting H4. On the
other hand, sacrifice had the opposite effect, producing higher relationship satisfaction, and subse-
quently reducing conflicts, b¼.07, t¼2.59, p¼.01, and negative outcomes, b¼.07, t¼3.00,
p¼.003, supporting H8. Furthermore, the effect of IG use on addiction was sequentially mediated
first by relationship satisfaction and then by conflicts (but not by negative outcomes), b¼.01,
t¼1.96, p¼.05, supporting H9 but not H10.
Out-of-sample predictive power (PLSpredict). We then tested the predictive power of our model through
k-fold cross-validation implemented in PLSpredict (Shmueli et al., 2019). This procedure splits the
data into k equally sized samples and then tests the predictive accuracy of k-1 subsets of data on the
remaining subset. The key metric, Q
2predict
, representing the fit between the predicted and original
data, should be greater than zero for a specific construct to have predictive accuracy (Hair et al.,
2019). We confirmed that in our case, all indicators yielded Q
2predict
> 0, suggesting meaningful
predictive power. In addition, when comparing the root mean squared error of the prediction, defined
as the square root of the average of the squared differences between the predicted and actual data,
with a naive benchmark, defined as the prediction generated from a linear regression model, we
observed that six indicators yielded higher prediction errors, which, according to the guidelines in
Shmueli et al., 2019, indicated that our model has medium predictive power.
Discussion
In this study, we have explored the impact of IG use and sacrifice on relationship quality and
addiction. We have identified novel pathways that elucidate how the extended usage of IG may
lead to undesired consequences and how a psychological affect, willingness to sacrifice for the
relationship partner, may help mitigate those consequences. Our results show that prolonged use of
IG reduces overall relationship satisfaction which then elevates conflicts and induces negative
outcomes. In contrast, willingness to sacrifice for the partner improves relationship satisfaction
which decreases conflicts and lessens negative outcomes. Furthermore, the increased use of IG may
eventually lead to addiction when satisfaction is low and conflicts over IG use are high between
relationship partners. Overall, these findings provide insight into the intrinsic connections between
IG use and romantic relationship, highlighting potential issues associated with the overuse of IG for
relationship partners.
Table 3. The Mediation Effects of the Constructs.
Path btp
IG Usage !Satisfaction !Conflicts .049 2.408 .016
IG Usage !Satisfaction !NegOutcomes .049 2.142 .032
Sacrifice !Satisfaction !Conflicts .069 2.588 .010
Sacrifice !Satisfaction !NegOutcomes .070 2.998 .003
IG Usage !Satisfaction !Conflicts !Addiction .012 1.964 .050
Sacrifice !Satisfaction !Conflicts !Addiction .018 2.104 .035
Satisfaction !Conflicts !Addiction .079 2.863 .004
1532 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Our findings are particularly noteworthy for two main reasons. First, to the best of our knowl-
edge, this is the first study that has focused on objectively tracked data, rather than participants’
self-report, for assessing the length of social media usage. Retrospective self-reporting can be a
convenient way to gauge the extent of social media use but subject to response biases, sometimes
resulting in inaccurate or even misleading estimates. We believe that our use of the tracking feature
of IG has given us greater confidence in the interpretation of data and also provided an example for
others to approach social media research with better quality control. Second, although some studies
have examined the impact of social media use on different aspects of relationship in the past, none
has specifically targeted the connections among social media use, sacrifice, relationship quality, and
social media addiction, all in the same context. The structural equation model that we have devel-
oped assessing constructs together has enabled us to gain further understanding of the pathways
through which excessive social media use may cause harm to both personal and relationship well-
being. Therefore, from methodological and practical standpoints, our study has provided unique
contributions to the current literature on similar topics.
Previous work has suggested that social media use may aggravate relationship conflicts and
produce negative outcomes. From disagreements over relationship status declaration (Papp et al.,
2012), to ambiguous messages posted on the partner’s account (Muise et al., 2009), from posting
selfies (Ridgeway & Clayton, 2016), to texting/friending a previous romantic partner (Clayton et al.,
2013), it is evident that access to information on social media may lead to feelings of jealousy, sense
of insecurity, and even lack of trust, which inevitably creates concerns for relationship well-being
and heightens the likelihood of infidelity or break-ups. Here, we have extended the literature by
highlighting an important mediating factor that clarifies the way in which social media use impacts
both conflicts and negative outcomes: relationship satisfaction. The increased use of social media
leads to a decline in relationship satisfaction, which acts as a catalyst for the subsequent emergence
of conflicts and undesired behaviors.
Satisfaction is a hallmark of positive relationship with little or no conflict (Ertz & Sarigollu,
2019). Mattson et al. (2012) indicated that relationships higher in positive characteristics tend to
have couples feeling more satisfied with each other and being less likely to cause conflicts. Couples
who are satisfied in their relationships generally have less conflict, presumably because they take
less offence, make more concessions, and respect different opinions (Bertoni & Bodenmann, 2010).
Similarly, couples who experience agreeableness in relationships report having increased relation-
ship satisfaction and subsequently lower conflicts (Cramer, 2001). When conflicts do arise, couples
who manage conflicts collaboratively show higher marital satisfaction (Greeff & de Bruyne, 2000),
whereas couples adopting an attitude of avoidance or withdrawal tend to report increasing dissa-
tisfaction over time (Smith et al., 2008). In many cases, however, engagement with social media
closes off the very window of opportunity for couples to collaboratively discuss and resolve conflicts
at early stages, thereby putting relationship satisfaction at risk.
Often times, heavy users of social media report having unhappy or troubling relationships, lower
marriage quality, and thoughts about separating (Valenzuela et al., 2014). This is because excessive
social media use creates negative feelings such as loneliness, lack of companionship, and lack of
social intimacy within the romantic relationship (Gull et al., 2019), which sharply decreases the
feelings of satisfaction. The quagmire, when coupled with the fact that social media allows one to
quickly connect with other like-minded individuals and seek out new opportunities, significantly
increases the likelihood of relationship infidelity and separation (Clayton, 2014). Consistent with
this view, research has shown that frequency and intensity of using social media are linked to the
engagement of online infidelity (Adams, 2017) and that high usage of social media can cause
emotional infidelity for someone in a romantic relationship (Nelson & Salawu, 2017).
One reason for these undesirable effects in relationship may be that social media reduces mean-
ingful interactions with one’s romantic partner in real life (Roberts & David, 2016), resulting in lack
Bouffard et al. 1533
of presence for each other when needed (Siegel, 2010) and missed moments for building emotional
connections (Leggett & Rossouw, 2014). Support for this view comes from the line of work showing
that couples with higher satisfaction tend to be more engaged in face-to-face communication (e.g.,
Goodman-Deane et al., 2016). The second possibility is related to people’s tendency to employ
social media as a means to escape problems and release emotions (McQuail, 1972; Manvelyan,
2016). This potentially exacerbates disputes or escalates tensions that might exist between relation-
ship partners, subsequently leading to a decline in perceived relationship satisfaction. The third
possibility is that social media use influences relationship satisfaction through affecting the emo-
tional well-being of the individual. Excessive use of or high dependence on social media alters the
functioning of mental health, causing reduced attention, declining self-esteem, and increased anxiety
(e.g., Christensen, 2018), making it more difficult for the affected individual to sustain a happy and
satisfied relationship. The lack of satisfaction jeopardizes the trust and support between relationship
partners, triggering both conflicts and negative behaviors.
In contrast, prosocial behaviors, such as willingness to sacrifice for the partner, can effectively
increase relationship satisfaction and decrease both conflicts and negative outcomes originated from
social media use. This is conceivable, as willingness to sacrifice would be one of those “positive
characteristics” possessed by a relationship partner when facing signs of conflicts or negativity in
relationship. Our data show that willingness to make even small sacrifices in everyday life, such as
choosing pizza toppings preferred by the partner, may significantly enhance the feelings of satisfac-
tion, which goes a long way in curtailing the likelihood of conflicts, negative behaviors, or even
addictive social media use. However, sacrifice is not without costs and may backfire in relationship
(e.g., Impett et al., 2012; Righetti et al., 2020). Although we recognize sacrifice as a possible way to
reduce the adverse effects of social media use in relationship, more work (e.g., defining scope and
motives of sacrifice) needs to be done before we can fully understand how sacrifice, or other types of
traits and behaviors, can be explored for intervention strategies.
Mounting evidence indicates that frequency, duration, and intensity of social media use contrib-
ute to social media addiction. However, current theories do not specifically address the psycholo-
gical processes for addiction in relationship partners. For instance, the social presence theory posits
that social media offers a virtual platform in which one may achieve a feeling of being together with
others or a sense of belonging (Gao et al., 2017; Heeter, 1992; Kircaburun & Griffiths, 2018). The
pleasure and arousal created by the perceived feeling of connection with others reinforces the
behavior of excessive social media use. This theoretical framework highlights the desire for con-
nection as the fundamental reason for addiction, but does not consider whether and how being
overconnected online would be harmful for relationship partners. The escape theory postulates that
some users of social media seek to escape from reality or distract themselves from negative feelings
in real life (e.g., Kircaburun & Griffiths, 2018; Yee, 2006). These users tend to fulfill their intrinsic
need through the gratifications of social media use, which may escalate into social media addiction
(Masur et al., 2014) or pathological internet usage (Davis et al., 2002; Kuss & Lopez-Fernandez,
2016). This theory acknowledges the negative consequences of social media use but fails to account
for certain active users who use social media for legitimate, functional purposes (e.g., seeking
information; Young et al., 2017). When the motive is not to “escape,” would these active users also
end up with the same negative consequences in case of overuse? Finally, some personality traits,
such as narcissism and low self-esteem, are thought to be related to addictive social media use,
reflecting the urge to feed the ego (narcissism) and restore the confidence (low self-esteem) through
expanding social resources online (e.g., Andreassen et al., 2017). While we appreciate the expla-
natory power of personality traits for addiction, this framework does not take into account either the
time factor or relationship dynamics in predicting addictive behavior. In comparison, our model
delineates a psychological pathway through which overuse of social media can lead to addiction,
specifically for individuals in relationship. We argue that relationship partners first experience less
1534 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
satisfaction due to social media use, which then triggers more tensions and conflicts for social media
use. When conflicts arise and escalate over time, relationship partners experience increased stress,
dwindling commitment, and unfulfilled needs for gratification, the very factors that have previously
been shown to predict addictive behavior (Dailey et al., 2020; Huang, 2014; Lee et al., 2012).
This study is not without limitations. First, IG only tracks usage over the last 7 days, raising the
question of whether the usage data in our study was truly representative of the actual IG activity. We
did show, however, that there was no evidence for significant variation in the time of usage within
the tracked period, suggesting that users’ IG activity was relatively stable over time. In addition,
participants had not been aware of us checking their usage time prior to the study, indicating that the
tracked data were reflective of their natural daily pattern of IG usage. Therefore, even if the tracked
data were based on a short period of time, we argue that it was a good and realistic approximation of
participants’ veridical IG usage in real life. Second, although we excluded participants who did not
use cell phones for accessing IG, we cannot guarantee that some of them did not use other devices for
accessing IG once in a while, which might have led to some usage time unaccounted for. Third,
despite that college students are a socially active group for both using social media and developing
new relationships, they are not the only group that is subject to the influence of excessive social
media use on relationship. We acknowledge the limitation of our sample including only college
students and call for future work to use more representative samples to confirm the validity of our
results. Fourth, there have been mixed results on whether relationship length may play a role in
moderating the impact of social media use (e.g., Clayton et al., 2013; Clayton, 2014). Although we
did not find such an effect of relationship length, future work may explore whether the effect is
specific to certain platforms or age groups.
Conclusions
Based on the objectively tracked data within the IG app and SEM approach, we have demonstrated
that increased IG usage would reduce relationship satisfaction that subsequently augments relation-
ship conflicts, increases negative relationship outcomes, and triggers addiction. In addition, we have
demonstrated that sacrifice for the relationship partner may yield the opposite effects through
enhancing relationship satisfaction. Collectively, our results have outlined novel pathways for
increased IG use to disrupt both relationship and personal well-being and provide yet another piece
of important evidence that social media use should be moderated for all age groups, and especially
young adults.
Appendix A
Instructions: Please Circle the Corresponding Answer that Represents Your Experiences Best
1. “How often do you have an argument with your partner as a result of viewing friends’ Instagram
profiles?”
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
2. “How often do you have an argument with your partner as a result of Instagram use?”
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
3. Have you and your partner had a disagreement over your Instagram posts showing the two of
you?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
Bouffard et al. 1535
4. Have you and your partner had a disagreement over your partner’s Instagram posts showing the
two of you?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
5. How often do you find yourself getting into an argument with your partner in general?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
6. How often do you have an argument with your partner about direct messages to/from followers?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
7. How often do you have an argument with your partner on liking other people’s posts?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
8. How often do you have an argument with your partner on viewing other people’s stories?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
9. How often do you have an argument with your partner on commenting on other people’s posts?
Always Often Sometimes Rarely Never
Appendix B
Instructions: Please Circle Either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ Based on Your Experience
1. “Have you physically cheated on your partner with someone you interact with on Instagram?”
Yes No
2. “Have you emotionally cheated on your partner with someone you interact with on Instagram?”
Yes No
3. Have you considered and/or desired cheating on your partner with someone you interact with on
Instagram?
Yes No
4. Have you gone out more in seeking other opportunities because of Instagram?
Yes No
5. Have you focused more on your own thoughts and preferences rather than your partners’ as a
result of Instagram use?
Yes No
1536 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Appendix C
Instructions: Read and Consider the Following Scenarios. Please Circle the Answer that Best Describes how
you would Respond
1. It is a Friday night, and you and your partner have been staying indoors for the past two weeks.
You really want to go out to a bar and have a good time. Your partner seems hesitant, and would
rather stay inside, at home, for another weekend. How would you respond?
a. Go out without your partner.
b. Stay at home with your partner.
2. It is Super Bowl Sunday, and you are extremely excited to watch the game. You are at your
house watching the game with your partner. It is now the fourth quarter with 10 minutes
remaining. The scores are very close, and it has been an intense game. Your partner asks you
to drive him/her to a pharmacy to pick up some cold medicine, and the pharmacy was going to
close in 15 minutes. It is not urgent and can wait another day, but sooner would be better. How
would you respond?
a. Tell your partner to wait to pick up it tomorrow.
b. Drive him/her to the pharmacy.
3. You only have 1 hour until you have to go to work. You have had a long stressful day at school,
and you are excited to have time to relax. Your partner lives 15 minutes away from your house.
His/her car broke down, and he/she has to get to work as soon as possible. He calls you
frantically and asks if you could give him/her a ride, and if you could not, he/she would take
public transportation instead. How would you respond?
a. Stay at home and relax, and have your partner take public transportation.
b. Pick him up and drive him to work even though it would take up your only time to relax.
4. It is a Saturday night, and you and your partner are deciding on what to get for dinner. You both
are starving and craving pizza. You want a plain cheese pizza because you do not like any
toppings. Your partner, however, really wants mushrooms on the pizza. This pizza restaurant
does not offer a half/half option. How would you respond?
a. Order mushrooms on the pizza.
b. Order a plain cheese pizza.
Authors’ Note
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. The authors affirm that
human research participants provided informed consent for publication.
Data Availability
The authors are willing to share their data, analytics methods, and study materials with other researchers. The
material and data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon
reasonable request.
Bouffard et al. 1537
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publica-
tion of this article.
Ethics Approval
All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical
standards of the Lasell University Research Ethics Committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its
later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article: This work was supported a Lasell Packard Faculty Development grant.
References
Abassi, I. S. (2018). Social media and committed relationships: What factors make our romantic relationship
vulnerable? Social Science Computer Review,37, 425–434.
Adams, A. N. (2017). Social networking sites and online infidelity [Dissertations and Doctoral Studies, 3379].
Walden University.
Anderson, T. L. (2005). Relationships among internet attitudes, internet use, romantic beliefs, and perceptions
of online romantic relationships. Cyberpsychology & Behavior,8, 521–531.
Andreassen, C. S., Pallesena, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of social
media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive Behaviors,64,
287–293.
Aparicio-Martinez, P., Perea-Moreno, A-J., Martinez-Jimenez, M. P., Redel-Mac´ıas, M. D., Pagliari, C., &
Vaquero-Abellan, M., (2019). Social media, thin-ideal, body dissatisfaction and disordered eating attitudes:
An exploratory analysis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,16, 4177.
Arikewuyo, A. O., Lasisi, T. T., Abdulbaqi, S. S., Omoloso, A. I., & Arikewuyo, H. O. (2020). Evaluating the
use of social media in escalating conflicts in romantic relationships. Journal of Public Affairs, e2331. https://
doi.org/10.1002/pa.2331
Bertoni, A., & Bodenmann, G. (2010). Satisfied and dissatisfied couples: Positive and negative dimensions,
conflict styles, and relationships with family of origin. European Psychologist,15, 175–184.
Brailovskaia, J., Rohmann, E., Bierhoff, H.-W., Schillack, H., & Margraf, J. (2019). The relationship between
daily stress, social support, and Facebook addiction disorder. Psychiatry Research,276, 167–174.
Braun, T., Rohr, M. K., Wagner, J., & Kunzmann, U. (2018). Perceived reciprocity and relationship satisfac-
tion: Age and relationship category matter. Psychology and Aging,33, 713–727.
Chin, W. W., Peterson, R. A., & Brown, P. S. (2008). Structural equation modelling in marketing: Some
practical reminders. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice,16, 287–298.
Christensen, S. P. (2018). Social media use and its impact on relationship and emotions [Theses and Disserta-
tions, 6927]. Brigham Young University.
Clayton, R. B. (2014). The third wheel: The impact of Twitter use on relationship infidelity and divorce.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking,17, 425–430.
Clayton, R. B., Nagurney, A., & Smith, J. R. (2013). Cheating, breakup, and divorce: Is Facebook use to blame?
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking,16, 717–720.
Cramer, D. (2001). Consensus change, conflict, and relationship satisfaction in romantic relationships.
The Journal of Psychology,135, 313–320.
Dailey, S. L., Howard, K., Roming, S. M. P., Ceballos, N., & Grimes, T. (2020). A biopsychosocial approach to
understanding social media addiction. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies,2, 158–167.
Davis, R. A., Flett, G. L., & Besser, A. (2002). Validation of a new scale for measuring problematic internet use:
Implications for pre-employment screening. Cyber Psychology & Behavior,5, 331–345.
1538 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Donnelly, E., & Kuss, D. J. (2016). Depression among users of social networking sites (SNSs): The Role of SNS
addiction and increased usage. Journal of Addiction and Preventive Medicine,1, 107.
Drouin, M., Miller, D. A., & Dibble, J. L. (2015). Facebook or memory which is the real threat to your
relationship? Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking,18, 561–566.
Eg
˘eci, I. S., & Genc¸o¨z, T. (2006). Factors associated with relationship satisfaction: Importance of communi-
cation skills. Contemporary Family Therapy: An International Journal,28, 383–391.
Elhai, J. D., Levine, J. C., Dvorak, R. D., & Hall, B. J. (2016). Fear of missing out, need for touch, anxiety and
depression are related to problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior,63, 509–516.
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C. W., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social capital and
college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,12,
1143–1168.
Ertz, M., & Sarigollu, E. (2019). The behavior-attitude relationship and satisfaction in proenvironmental
behavior. Environment and Behavior,51, 1106–1132.
Fox, J., & Anderegg, C. (2014). Romantic relationship stages and social networking sites: Uncertainty reduc-
tion strategies and perceived relational norms on Facebook. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social
Networking,17, 685–691.
Fox, J., & Moreland, J. J. (2015). The dark side of social networking sites: An exploration of the relational and
psychological stressors associated with Facebook use and affordances. Computers in Human Behavior,45,
168–176.
Funk, J. L., & Rogge, R. D. (2007). Testing the ruler with item response theory: Increasing precision of
measurement for relationship satisfaction with the couples satisfaction index. Journal of Family Psychology,
21, 572–583.
G´abor, O., T´oth-Kir´aly, I., & B}
othe, B. (2015). Four facets of Facebook intensity—The development of the
multidimensional Facebook Intensity Scale. Personality and Individual Differences,100, 95–104.
Gao, W., Liu, Z., & Li, J. (2017). How does social presence influence SNS addiction? A belongingness theory
perspective. Computers in Human Behavior,77, 347–355.
Goodman-Deane, J., Mieczakowski, A., Johnson, D., Goldhaber, T., & Clarkson, J. P. (2016). The impact of
communication technologies on life and relationship satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior,57, 219–229.
Greef, A. P., & Bruyne, T. D. (2000). Conflict management style and marital satisfaction. Journal of Sex &
Marital Therapy,26, 321–334.
Gull, H., Iqbal, S. Z., Al_Qahtani, S. H., Alassaf, R. A., & Kamaleldin, M. M. (2019). Impact of social media
usage on married couple behavior a pilot study in Middle East. International Journal of Applied Engineering
Research,14, 1368–1378.
Gu
¨ndu
¨z, U. (2017). The effect of social media on identity construction. Mediterranean Journal of Social
Sciences,8, 85–92.
Hair, J. F., Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. (2013). A primer on partial least squares structural
equation modelling (PLS-SEM). Sage.
Hair, J. F., Risher, J. J., Sarstedt, M., & Ringle, C. M. (2019). When to use and how to report the results of
PLS-SEM. European Business Review,31, 2–24.
Heeter, C. (1992). Being there: The subjective experience of presence. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual
Environments. MIT Press.
Henseler, J., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2015). A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in
variance-based structural equation modeling. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science,43, 115–135.
Hertlein, K. M. (2012). Digital dwelling: Technology in couple and family relationships. Family Relations,61,
374–387.
Holmes, B. M. (2004). Romantic partner ideals and dysfunctional relationship beliefs cultivated through
popular media messages: Implications for relationship satisfaction [Doctoral Dissertations, AAI3136737].
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Bouffard et al. 1539
Hu, Y., Manikonda, L., & Kambhampati, S. (2014, June 1–4). What we Instagram: A first analysis of Instagram
photo content and user types. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Weblogs and Social
Media, ICWSM 2014; The AAAI Press (pp. 595–598). Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Huang, H. (2014). Social media generation in urban China: A study of social media use and addiction among
adolescents. Springer.
Impett, E. A., Kogan, A., English, T., John, O., Oveis, C., Gordon, A. M., & Keltner, D. (2012). Suppression
sours sacrifice: Emotional and relational costs of suppressing emotions in romantic relationships. Person-
ality and Social Psychology,38, 707–720.
Kelly, L., Miller-Ott, A. E., & Duran, R. L. (2017). Sports scores and intimate moments: An expectancy
violations theory approach to partner cell phone behaviors in adult romantic relationships. Western Journal
of Communication,81, 619–640.
Kircaburun, K., & Griffiths, M. D. (2018). Instagram addiction and the Big Five of personality: The mediating
role of self-liking. Journal of Behavioral Addictions,7, 158–170.
Kircaburun, K., & Griffiths, M. D. (2019). Problematic Instagram use: The role of perceived feeling of presence
and escapism. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction,17, 909–921.
Kogan, A., Impett, E. A., Oveis, C., Huil, B., Gordon, A. M., & Keltner, D. (2010). When giving feels good:
The intrinsic benefits of sacrifice in romantic relationships for the communally motivated. Psychological
Science,21, 1918–1924.
Kuss, D. J., & Lopez-Fernandez, O. (2016). Internet addiction and problematic internet use: A systematic
review of clinical research. World Journal of Psychiatry,6, 143–176.
Le, B. M., Impett, E. A., Lemay, E. P., Muise, A., & Tskhay, K. (2017). Communal motivation and well-being
in interpersonal relationships: An integrative review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin,144, 1–25.
Lee, Z. W. Y., Cheung, C. M. K., & Thadani, D. R. (2012, January 4–7). An investigation into the problematic
use of Facebook. In Conference: System Science (HICSS) (pp. 1768–1776). Maui, Hawaii, USA.
Leggett, C., & Rossouw, P. (2014). The impact of technology use on couple relationships: A neuropsycholo-
gical perspective. International Journal of Neuropsychotherapy,2, 44–99.
Lemay, E. P. (2016). The forecast model of relationship commitment. Journal of Personality Social Psychol-
ogy,111, 34–52.
Lenne, O. D., Wittevronghel, L., Vandenbosch, L., & Eggermont, S. (2019). Romantic relationship commit-
ment and the threat of alternatives on social media. Journal of International Association for Relationship
Research,26, 680–693.
Manvelyan, C. (2016). Pics or it didn’t happen: Relationship satisfaction and its effects on Instagram use.
Colloguy,12, 87–100.
Masur, P. K., Reinecke, L., Ziegele, M., & Quiring, O. (2014). The interplay of intrinsic need satisfaction and
Facebook specific motives in explaining addictive behavior on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior,
39, 376–386.
Mattson, R. E., Rogge, R. E., Johnson, M. D., Davidson, E. K. B., & Fincham, F. D. (2012). The positive and
negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships,20, 328–355.
McDaniel, B. T., & Coyne, S. M. (2016). “Technoference”: The interference of technology in couple relation-
ships and implications for women’s personal and relational well-being. Psychology of Popular Media
Culture,5, 85–98.
McDaniel, B. T., Drouin, M., & Cravens, J. (2017). Do you have anything to hide? Infidelity-related behaviors
on social media sites and marital satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior,66, 88–95.
McQuail, D. (1972). Sociology of mass communications: Selected readings (p. 961). Penguin (Non-Classics).
Muise, A., Christofides, E., & Desmarais, S. (2009). More information than you ever wanted: Does Facebook
bring out the green-eyed monster of jealousy? Cyberpsychology & Behavior,12, 441–444.
Nelson, O., & Salawu, A. (2017). Can my wife be virtual-adulterous? An experiential study on Facebook,
emotional infidelity and self-disclosure. Journal of International Woman’s Studies,18, 166–179.
1540 Social Science Computer Review 40(6)
Nesi, J., Choukas-Bradley, S., & Prinstein, M. J. (2018). Transformation of adolescent peer relations in the
social media context: Part 1—A theoretical framework and application to dyadic peer relationships. Clinical
Child and Family Psychology Review,21, 267–294.
Papp, L. M., Danielewicz, J., & Cayemberg, C. (2012). ‘‘Are We Facebook Official?’’ Implications of dating
partners’ Facebook use and profiles for intimate relationship satisfaction. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and
Social Networking,15, 85–90.
Peluso, P. R. (Ed.). (2007). Family therapy and counseling. Infidelity: A practitioner’s guide to working with
couples in crisis. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Pollet, T. V., Roberts, S. G. B., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2011). Use of social network sites and instant messaging
does not lead to increased offline social network size, or to emotionally closer relationships with offline
network members. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking,14, 253–258.
Ridgeway, J. L., & Clayton, R. B. (2016). Instagram unfiltered: Exploring associations of body image satisfac-
tion, Instagram #selfie posting, and negative romantic relationship outcomes. Cyberpsychology, Behavior,
and Social Networking,19, 2–7.
Righetti, F., Sakaluk, J. K., Faure, R., & Impett, E. A. (2020). The link between sacrifice and relational and
personal well-being: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin,146, 900–921.
Ringle, C. M., Wende, S., & Becker, J. M. (2015). SmartPLS 3. SmartPLS, Bonningstedt.
Roberts, J. A., & David, M. E. (2016). My life has become a major distraction from my cell phone:
Partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction among romantic partners. Computers in Human Behavior,
54, 134–141.
Roberts, J., Yaya, L., & Manolis, C. (2014). The invisible addiction: Cell-phone activities and addiction among
male and female college students. Journal of Behavioral Addictions,3, 254–265.
Shaw, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., Allen, E. S., Stanley, S. M., & Markman, H. J. (2013). Predictors of extradyadic
sexual involvement in unmarried opposite-sex relationships. Journal of Sex Research,50, 5980610.
Shmueli, G., Sarstedt, M., Hair, J. F., Cheah, J. H., Ting, H., Vaithilingam, S., & Ringle, C. M. (2019).
Predictive model assessment in PLS-SEM: Guidelines for using PLSpredict. European Journal of Market-
ing,53, 2322–2347.
Siegel, D. J. (2010). The mindful therapist. Norton.
Smith, L., Heaven, P. C. L., & Ciarrochi, J. (2008). Trait emotional intelligence, conflict communication
patterns, and relationship satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences,44, 1314–1325.
Utz, S., & Beukeboom, C. J. (2011). The role of social network sites in romantic relationships: Effects on
jealousy and relationship happiness. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication,16, 511–527.
Valenzuela, S., Halpern, D., & Katz, J. E. (2014). Social network sites, marriage well-being and divorce: Survey
and state-level evidence from the United States. Computers in Human Behavior,36, 94–101.
Van den Eijnden, R. J. J. M., Lemmens, J. S., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2016). The social media disorder scale.
Computers in Human Behavior,61, 478–487.
Van Lange, P. A. M., Rusbult, C. E., Drigotas, S. M., Arriaga, X. B., Witcher, B. S., & Cox, C. L. (1997).
Willingness to sacrifice in close relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,72,
1373–1395.
Vaterlaus, J. M., Barnett, K., Roche, C., & Young, J. A. (2016). “Snapchat is more personal”: An exploratory
study on Snapchat behaviors and young adult interpersonal relationships. Computers in Human Behavior,
62, 594–601.
Villanti, A. C., Johnson, A. L., Ilakkuvan, V., Jacobs, M. A., Graham, A. L., & Rath, J. M. (2017). Social
media use and access to digital technology in US young adults in 2016. Journal of Medical Internet
Research,19, 196.
Whisman, M. A., Gordon, K. C., & Chatav, Y. (2007). Predicting sexual infidelity in a population-based sample
of married individuals. Journal of Family Psychology,21, 320–324.
Yacoub, C., Spoede, J., Cutting, R., & Hawley, D. (2018). The impact of social media on romantic relation-
ships. Journal of Education and Social Development,2, 53–58.
Bouffard et al. 1541
Yee, N. (2006). Motivations for play in online games. CyberPsychology & Behavior,9, 772–775.
Yonker, L. M., Zan, S., Scirica, C. V., Jethwani, K., & Kinane, T. B. (2015). “Friending” teens: Systematic
review of social media in adolescent and young adult health care. Journal Medical Internet Research,17, e4.
Young, N. L., Kuss, D. J., Griffiths, M. D., & Howard, C. J. (2017). Passive Facebook use, Facebook addiction,
and associations with escapism: An experimental vignette study. Computers in Human Behavior,71, 24–31.
Author Biographies
Skye Bouffard graduated from Lasell University with a B.S. in Psychology in 2020. She has been interested in
exploring the general impact of social media on relationship dynamics.
Deanna Giglio graduated from Lasell University with a B.S. in Psychology in 2020. She has been interested in
examining the adverse effects of social media on human interactions.
Zane Zheng is an associate professor of psychology & Chair of Academic Research at Lasell University. One
line of his research is to utilize social media as an empirical model to probe into the self-other boundary and to
elucidate the socio-cognitive mechanisms of self-representation.
A preview of this full-text is provided by SAGE Publications Inc.
Content available from Social Science Computer Review
This content is subject to copyright.
