But even if it doesn’t lead to full-on cheating, social media presents new problems and temptations, even for the faithful. Besides offering privacy, social media also presents us with a forum where other potential partners are constantly on display. One gentleman recalled how, when he got into a new relationship, social media such as Instagram provided an outlet to view all the options out there.
I love my girlfriend, but when we were first getting serious, I would go on Instagram and see all these hot girls. And its like, ‘Whoa should I be dating these girls? Or just settle down and be in a relationship?’ It felt like the opposite of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ They were in sight and IN my mind.
The privacy of the Internet and phone world has also led to the rise of settings where people can be adulterous without any judgments. The most well-known example is Ashley Madison, a terrifyingly popular online dating website that is designed specifically to help people have affairs. The company’s motto is “Life is Short. Have an Affair.”
The company enrolls its full-paying members in the “Affair Guarantee Program,” which offers a full refund if they don’t find someone within their first three months on the site. The site’s home page offers users a click-through icon that lets them “Search and Chat with Married People in Your Area,” as well as a blog and Twitter feed featuring advice such as “How to Get and Keep a Fuck Buddy” and news items such as “Men Not Bothered by the Idea of Wives’ Infidelity.”
Apparently it’s growing quickly, from 8.5 million members in 2011 to a self-reported 11 million members in 2014.5
Now, I know that people have been cheating on each other for as long as they’ve made promises to be monogamous and that, to date, there’s no hard evidence that the Internet is making people more likely to commit infidelity. That said, it’s impossible to imagine something like Ashley Madison getting this popular this fast in a world without digital media. Whether or not we’re cheating more often, it’s certainly easier to do.
BREAKING UP IN THE PHONE WORLD
Another thing that’s become easier because of modern technology is breakups. Not long ago breaking up with someone required an emotionally wrenching face-to-face conversation or, at the least, a phone call in which the person who wanted to end things had to own up to their feelings and, usually, explain themselves too. Generally the breakup conversation also required being thoughtful about the other person’s feelings and vulnerability, and doing everything possible to say things that would boost the morale of the person being jilted.
This is why our culture developed lines like “It’s not you, it’s me” and “I’m just not ready to be in a relationship now” and “I’m sorry, I just want to focus on my dragon art.”
Of course, no one liked these conversations. But we all saw them as obligatory, because they were the decent human thing to do for another person.
Today a growing number of people, and a majority of younger adults, are more likely to break up with someone by text, instant message, or social media than in person or by phone. According to a 2014 survey of 2,712 eighteen- to thirty-year-olds who’d had a relationship end during the previous year, 56 percent said they had broken up using digital media, with texting being the most popular method (25 percent), followed closely by social media (20 percent), and then e-mail (11 percent), which people used because it let them “fully explain their reasons.”
By contrast, only 18 percent had broken up through a face-to-face interaction, and a mere 15 percent had split up with a call.6 A startling 0.0014 percent had broken up by hiring a blimp that said, “Tammy I think we need to see other people.” (Note: I think this was just one dude named Phil from Indiana.)
The most common reason people gave for breaking up via text or social media was that it is “less awkward,” which makes sense given that young adults do just about all other communication through their phones too.
Oddly, 73 percent of those young adults—the very same ones who said they had broken up with other people via text or social media—said they would be upset if someone broke up with them that way.
To be clear, the study above didn’t specify how serious these relationships were, so it didn’t account for how the length or intensity of the relationship affected the preferred breakup method. Obviously there’s a huge difference between breaking up with someone after three weeks and after three years. In fact, the anthropologist Ilana Gershon has found many young people in casual relationships would actually prefer to be dumped by these less traditional methods.7