Has your significant other seemingly gone off the deep end with jealousy? Before you write off the relationship and file it under ‘mentally unstable and will never date again,’ listen here. These nuances may be the result of a favorite social-networking Web site, Facebook.com.

The recent onslaught of technology has dragged relationship problems into uncharted territory. It’s no longer strictly face-to-face interaction; people can see what other people are doing anytime a photo or a wall post goes up on their Facebook page. The site seems to be a prime culprit for fidelity discrepancies in contemporary relationships, and those at Syracuse University are no exception.

Students spend a lot of time on their computers, and seemingly a lot of time on Facebook. People log onto Facebook for a few reasons: to check up on their friends, to chat, to post pictures and to lurk on their significant others. People seem to be spending a lot of time keeping virtual tabs on one another.

John Thompson, a part-time SU student in his final year, recalls a time that his special lady interrogated him about his Facebook account. ‘She would bug me about being friends with and talking to random girls on the site,’ Thompson said. His girlfriend would log onto Facebook, see girls on his wall and friend list, and immediately assume he was being unfaithful.

Dayna Carney, a senior art photography major, knows couples that have even broken up over Facebook. ‘People read too far into pictures, sometimes couples even have to de-friend each other on Facebook,’ Carney said.

Drastic measures, like couples ending their Facebook friendship to salvage their relationship, don’t always keep them from attempting to keep tabs on one another.

‘People make up fake accounts to friend their boyfriend or girlfriends so they can see their profiles,’ Carney said.

Nicole Savva, a senior retail management student, explained that Facebook problems run rampant in the Greek community and on campus. She said that being mutual friends with someone on Facebook means you have access to their photos.

‘You can’t hide anything anymore,’ Savya said.

On Facebook, the interpretations seem ruthless and pessimistic.

‘You can tell if a guy is ‘cheers’ing’ to a shot he just bought a girl or just saying ‘Hey what’s up?’ in the background,’ Savva said.

Ellen DeLara, an associate professor in the School of Social Work, explains that reading into facial expressions is as old as time. Figuring out others’ motivations is a survival technique, and DeLara also believes that these expressions are often misread by past experiences.

Facebook is a strictly virtual and visual world, and many aspects of reality are lost on it. DeLara said that the misreading of facial expressions could also be the result of a compromised amygdala, a part of the brain that processes memory of emotional reactions, leading to seeing harmful intent where it doesn’t exist.

‘People are dependent on other body cues, besides just facial expression, to read the intent of another. So, in real life, you can see someone’s expressions, but you can also hear tone of voice and other body language to help you make a determination about what the person’s intent toward you or others may be,’ DeLara said.

‘Those thousand words (that a picture can be made up of) don’t make up for the loss of the other cues that are present in real face-to-face exchanges.’

Insecurities and vulnerabilities occur in relationships as a means of survival, DeLara, said. ‘All primates, including humans, live in groups and have social networks. In order to obtain the necessary resources to survive and thrive, we are programmed to get along with others and to accumulate as many ‘friends’ and as much status as possible.’

Jealousy is human nature and it’s a means to an end for survival and to maintain the species. People don’t want someone else taking your boyfriend or girlfriend because then they can’t procreate. While this may sound far fetched when a person is just thinking about looking at your significant other’s page, it does say something significant about human instinct.

While it may be human nature to feel jealousy, Facebook seems to have exacerbated this tendency. There is tons of information readily available about other people at any time, and what people are doing with it is feeding mass paranoia. In terms of relationships, DeLara suggests a non-technological one: ‘Relationships are too fragile to deal with exclusively online.’

While most college students’ relationships aren’t strictly online, the emphasis placed on social networking, like that on Facebook, has seemingly become too strong. There is not enough face-time occurring if there is this much controversy arising from what people are staring at on a computer screen.

‘If you are tempted to deal a death blow to an important relationship based on assumptions, you owe it to yourself to talk directly,’ DeLara said. ‘So meet up or pick up the phone.’

rssaxson@syr.edu

Published on September 15, 2009 at 12:00 pm