6 Things You Should Never Do on Facebook While Married

In recent years, social media has become a silent killer of our time, mental health and even marriages. With many of the effects happening without us even noticing, it’s as important as ever to pay attention to the triggers that could eventually influence our lives in negative ways, in particularly in our marriages and relationships. A research study conducted by University of Missouri doctoral student, Russell Clayton found that excessive use of social media had detrimental effects on relationships. The study, published by the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, concluded that “individuals who use Facebook excessively are far more likely to experience Facebook–related conflict with their romantic partners, which then may cause negative relationship outcomes including emotional and physical cheating, breakup and divorce.” With ever-increasing divorce rates, we are at a critical time to be more diligent about protecting our hearts, minds and marriages when it comes to social media usage. To help establish healthier social media habits, it’s important that we are aware of what online behaviors we’re practicing that may derail our relationships. If we’re not careful, these habits can lead to divorce and separation. Here are 6 things you should never do on Facebook while married.

Too Much Time

The recent studies published on Facebook usage should be a warning sign to us all. Not only are we spending a LOT of our valuable time on the social network, we are also at risk to being susceptible to some negative emotional effects as a result of all the voyeuring. According to the Global Web Index, the average person around the world spends 1 hour and 40 minutes browsing social networks every day. In conjunction with the time we spend on social networks, Informate Mobile Intelligence published a study indicating that people in the U.S. check their social media accounts 17 times a day…that translates to at least once every waking hour, if not more. Not only is our time eaten up by social media, so is our headspace. New research indicates that heavy social media usage can damage our mental health. Some researched side effects include, weaker self-control, the inability to think independently, damaging your self-esteem, promotes jealousy, fear of missing out (FOMO) and can negatively effect our ability to have “real-life” conversations. Wide research suggests that all of these things can greatly contribute to our unhappiness, and thus have a trickle effect into marriage.

Follow Unhealthy Pages and Businesses

Our friends and friends-of-friends aren’t the only thing that can contribute to the negative effects of social media on our mental well-being and our relationships, but the media, businesses and fan pages can also heavily influence it as well. With so many entities out there vying for your attention, they are willing to publish anything to get your click. With that comes exposure to unsavory topics, uninformed world views and unhealthy perceptions of beauty, wealth and health. Tread with caution when deciding to follow some of these pages and keep in mind that even these sources can be a cause of unhappiness and discourse in your life and relationships.