The Role of Social Network Sites in Romantic Relationships: Effects on Jealousy and Relationship Happiness

By Sonja Utz, Camiel J. Beukeboom. J. Comput. Mediat. Commun., 2011

296 citations recorded by the source corpus.

On social network sites (SNS), information about one's romantic partner is readily available and public for friends. The paper focuses on the negative (SNS jealousy) and positive (SNS relationship happiness) consequences of SNS use for romantic relationships. We examined whether relationship satisfaction, trait jealousy, SNS use and need for popularity predicted these emotional consequences of SNS use and tested the moderating role of self-esteem. For low self-esteem individuals, need for popularity predicted jealousy and relationship happiness. For high-self-esteem individuals, SNS use for grooming was the main predictor. Low-self-esteem individuals try to compensate their low self-esteem by creating an idealized picture. Undesirable information threatens this picture, and especially individuals with a high need for popularity react with SNS jealousy.

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5bf9b4cb3e9bcc6bad52f7792def77b85fc5d3d8

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In Literature and Literary Theory

Suzanna J. Opree

In Sociology and Political Science

Citations in the corpus

Gone with the wind: Exploring mobile daters’ ghosting experiences (2020, background): “For instance, Utz and Beukeboom (2011) found that for people with high selfesteem, regularly checking their partners’ Social Networking Site (SNS) activity significantly predicted both SNS jealousy and SNS happiness.”
Social networking on smartphones: When mobile phones become addictive (2013, background): “The construct has also been found to be associated with life satisfaction, social trust, and civic participation (Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009) as well as marginally associated with SNS happiness (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011).”
"Creeping" or just information seeking? Gender differences in partner monitoring in response to jealousy on Facebook (2014, background): “Although these terms have a negative connotation, Utz and Beukeboom (2011) suggest that Facebook may offer a more socially acceptable way of monitoring a partner’s activities since the information is posted publicly and accessing it is not an obvious violation of trust.”
Social Network Sites, Individual Social Capital and Happiness (2016, background): “Such social comparisons can aggravate feelings of envy and jealousy, which in turn decrease subjective well-being (Muise et al. 2009; Utz and Beukeboom 2011; Appel et al. 2016).”
Can You See How Happy We Are? Facebook Images and Relationship Satisfaction (2013, background): “…research has found that participation in online social networks builds social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007) and is used to strengthen offline relationships (Salimkhan, Manago, & Greenfield, 2010) by enabling users to express affection toward loved ones (Utz & Beukeboom, 2011).”
Making It “Facebook Official”: Reflecting on Romantic Relationships Through Sustained Facebook Use (2016, background): “…the relationship status of our “friends” (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007) as the site has “centralized” much of the romantic information we learn about people captured through changing status updates, posting images of a couple together, and so on (Ito et al., 2010; Utz & Beukeboom, 2011).”