Who is more likely to be happy in their romantic relationship: those who post a lot on social media or those who never even mention their partner? We have the expert analysis…
Welcome to our series, The Love Diaries – a space for you to share your experiences, advice, fairy-tale endings, setbacks and heartbreaks. We’ll be hearing from industry experts giving practical advice alongside Capsule readers (You!) sharing your firsthand experiences with love – from the woman who cheated on her husband with a work colleague, one woman’s temptation now the love of her life is finally single (although she’s not), and the woman who forced her husband to choose between her and his girlfriend.
I recently caught up with a couple of old friends and one of them told us about someone we know, who was going through a divorce (welcome to life in your forties I guess?!). I was shocked. My other friend, however, was not.
“Well that was obvious,” I think were her exact words.
I had a brief flash in my memory of seeing a lot of her on Instagram a few months back – there’d suddenly been a flurry of posts of her and her husband, off having time away from their child and gushing about their relationship.
“Exactly,” my friend said. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There was waaaaay to much stuff about her husband and how happy she was.”
It did feel a little OTT at the time, but, I am a chronic under-sharer of my personal life on social media, so I don’t feel I have the best gauge on how much sharing is appropriate or inappropriate.
But, it seems there is plenty of research that can do that judging for me.
And yes, as my friend pointed out the whole ‘thou who protest the most’, turns out to be very true on the gram. Because those who post the most about how happy they are in their romantic relationship are also the most likely to be the ones who’re unhappy in their relationships.
A Shotkit study looked at the habits of more than 2,000 Brits who were in a relationship, aged 18-50 and found that social media is – as we all know it to be – pretty darn performative, but most definitely so, when it comes to relationships.
They found that, essentially, the more often you post ‘couples content’ the less likely your levels of happiness are likely to be in that relationship.
Of couples who posted about three or more pieces of content a week, regularly, only 10% described their relationship as being ‘very happy’. In fact, 42% said they were ‘very unhappy’.
Those who shared couples content a few times a year – maybe on a birthday, anniversary, fathers or mother’s day etc – 32% described themselves as very happy, 33% as happy, 23% as unhappy and only 12% as very unhappy.
And those who said they never post were actually the happiest – 46% described themselves as very happy, 27% as happy, 14% as unhappy and 13% as very unhappy.
The study is also very in line with a University of Kansas study that looked at the habits of 300 couples. They also concluded that those who were happy and secure in their relationships were less likely to post couples content on social media. Interestingly, their conclusion was that those who post more often were more likely to experience feelings of comparison and jealousy.
Essentially, they concluded that when you constantly want to expose your ‘happy’ moments on social media, it becomes difficult not to make comparisons with others – which is more likely to put a strain on the dynamics of your relationship. It’s a viscous cycle, because you’re going to find yourself wanting to post more and more about how great your relationship is. You’ll feel a constant pressure to display an idealized version of your relationship, rather than authenticity and genuine happiness.
The study found that those who publish less are also less likely to indulge in the harmful habit of comparing themselves to others, which means you’re much likelier to be happy. And the happiest people? Well, they’re most often not even on social media.
And interestingly, it seems you all out there reading Capsule already have a keen sense of this.
A couple of weeks ago we asked you on social media who was happier: those who post more on social media and those who post less.
A very definitive 92% of you said that couples who post LESS often are likely to be happier.
Of those who answered (around 400 of you), most of you said you don’t often mention your partner of social media. Just 1% said you post a few times a week, 20% said every few months, 41% maybe on their birthday or wedding anniversary and 38% said never.
You do, however, kinda like it when your partner posts about you. Nearly half of you (46%) said you feel ‘loved’ when your partner posts about you, while 11% feel ‘validated’. On the flipside though, 28% feel ‘meh’ and 15% said ‘I get the ick’.
So… why do we feel compelled, or want to, post about our partners? It seems most of our respondents don’t post often, but when they do, they do it ‘to show everyone out there that I love them’ (that’s according to 52% of respondents). Another 36% said it’s ‘to show them I love them’, while 8% say it’s ‘to remind everyone I’m taken’ and 5% say its ‘so that it might be reciprocated, I guess’.
