Instagram Can Have You Insta-Divorced!

By now, almost all of us are plugged into social media in some form or fashion. It’s a great way to not only stay connected to distant family and friends, but it’s also an excellent way to communicate with interesting people we’ve never met. Awesome sauce! Right? Well presumably so, yes. But in a marriage, too much Facebook and not enough face time (no not the app) can be detrimental. More and more, I’m hearing rumblings of social media going awry in married life. But how is this possible? How can an app on my phone or a non-pornographic website cause so much turmoil on the home front? Well, if you’ve ever heard that too much of anything is not good, even if it’s supposed to be a good thing, then you’re beginning to get an idea of where I’m going with this.

I was reading an article on the subject the other day and it raised some very interesting points while confirming what I already suspected. Not only was I hearing rantings and ravings from close as well as distant friends of how social media can cause some pretty bad hiccups, but the information I was reading online from other sources also confirmed my suspicions. These "hiccups" can range from the petty to the very serious. I’ve seen one spouse mad at the other for not "liking" a status. And I’ve seen marriages literally fall apart because there are way too many inappropriate messages in the inbox.

In an age where it is becoming increasingly easier to be seen and heard by the masses with a simple post or click, we need to be very mindful of the potential pitfalls of social media gone haywire. Hubby may think it’s hilarious that his wife snapped a pic of him drooling and posted it on Tumblr. However, the exact same Hubby may not get any nookie for quite some time if he posts a similar pic of his wife. In my experience, most outside forces enter a marriage because there’s a disconnect between spouses. There’s either way too much idle time or the time spent doing whatever is not spent together in a productive way. Start by writing down and expressing exactly how you feel about the social media activity. Will this be a simple fix or will you both need to put some work in to put the phones down? Are you upset because your spouse spends too much time on social media or is it a content issue?

Try putting the phones on silent or vibrate while engaging in a planned activity. The activity doesn’t have to be expensive. Free activities are often the best. You’d be surprised at how much fun you can have playing a very spirited game of Uno. I’d shoot for two new activities per week. You can set your own time parameters for each activity. But set them! Do those activities each week for two months. You should see improvement in quality time spent which will inevitably lead to a much stronger bond. Once you’ve gotten comfortable with those activities, add another to the list. Or you may be able to find a group on Facebook that the two of you can jointly participate in. There are many ways to skin a cat and these are only a few tried and true methods from your truly. By all means, develop your own and if you feel you’ve found some great ways to combat the social media demon, shoot me a comment and let me know. I’d love to hear from you.