Have your eyes glued to your screen? Well, maybe try and dial it back a bit.
A study published in Computers in Human Behaviour has found that high levels of social media usage are strongly correlated with divorce. Of course, that doesn’t mean that social media causes divorce—researchers freely admit that unhappy couples could seek out social media. Or both things could be true.
Researchers looked at Facebook penetration across various American states from 2008 to 2010 and compared the data with divorce rates. They found that “a 20% annual increase in the share of a state’s population with a Facebook account is associated with a 2.18% increase in the divorce rate.”
Researchers also looked at data taken from 1,160 married people surveyed about the quality of their relationships and how much time they spent on social media sites. Participants reporting more time spent online also reported lower levels of happiness in their marriage. Researchers also say that lots of social media use was a strong predictor of thinking of divorce.
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Photo courtesy of flickr.
