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Since the launch of Facebook in January of 2004, the social networking site has become a world-wide phenomenon that was recently ranked the number one most popular social networking site followed by Myspace. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates as well as several computer science students, the social networking site was at first only available to Harvard students until it was eventually accessible to several colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford. Ultimately, access was granted to high school students and other college students until September of 2006, when any person thirteen or over was able to make their own Facebook profile.

Today, Facebook has over 400 million users and counting. However, there have been many dilemmas about the use of Facebook. Some countries have banned the use of Facebook or have put many limits on the access that the users have (i.e. censoring by the government of certain words/pictures). Facebook also ran into several privacy issues; however, the privacy of Facebook profiles have been changed to range from controlling who can see your pictures to who can search you. Privacy on Facebook has been increased to the point where you can even control what each individual friend can see on your profile. However, this privacy does have its consequences, especially when it comes down to intimate relationships.

Although currently there is not much information on the consequences that Facebook has on intimate relationships, the research that has been done on the subject seems to be pointing towards negative correlations between the use of Facebook and the quality of intimate relationships. One television show on the channel MTV called True Life did a segment called “I have Digital Drama,” which follows around two young couples who have allowed cell phones and Facebook deteriorate their relationship. For one couple, their distrust for one another went so far as putting locks on their cell phones so they could not read each other’s texts and going into each others’ Facebooks in order to see who they have been talking to, which put a huge strain on their relationship and eventually led to their break up. The boyfriend was constantly on Facebook while the girl was always texting and often times would “Facebook stalk” his page to see what “Facebook skanks” he was talking to, often times even referring to them as his “Facebook girlfriends.” Although this is a more extreme example of the downsides of having a Facebook and being in a relationship, in everyday life, people even in our own community do experience this problem, even if it is a milder form. For example, one couple that we interviewed shares a Facebook so that her boyfriend, Andrew*, would not be worried about who she was talking to and adding. He even threatened to break up with her a few times if she ever made herself a Facebook. As for his girlfriend, Hannah*, she has full access to Andrew’s Facebook and has even gotten in a few fights with Andrew when he changed his password or if she noticed that the pictures uploaded were of him and another girl but she was not in any of the photos.

Another couple that we interviewed did not have so much a problem with who they were talking on Facebook with but rather that they were always on Facebook, even when they see each other, which was at least five times a week. When asked how strong they felt about their relationship before and after Facebook, they rated their pre-Facebook relationship as a 10 whereas after Facebook, they only rated the strength of their relationship as an 8. When asked about the level of intimacy that they felt before and after Facebook, they were satisfied with their level of physical intimacy pre-Facebook; however, after they started Facebook, they became unsatisfied with their level of physical intimacy. When asked why they felt this way, the boyfriend, Dan*, replied “Facebook has too much drama. Every time we logged on, it would just ruin our mood to do anything. So avoiding Facebook was a good idea at the time.”

Other partners that we interviewed experienced less jealousy when it came down to their partners and Facebook. However, what we noticed was that the people that experienced more jealousy on Facebook spent more time on Facebook. The relative time that they spent face to face was relatively the same, which averaged around 3-5 times a week. This data corresponds to recent research, which was published in an academic journal called Cyberpsychology and Behavior. The article, entitled “More Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green Eyed Monster of Jealousy?” talks about the results of a recent survey/research done by Muise, Christofides, and Desmarais (2009) about Facebook and relationships, noting that people that were more likely to be jealous, also known as “trait jealousy” were also more likely to be “Facebook jealous.” On top of that, the amount of time that was spent on Facebook contributed to jealousy. The researchers stated after their research that “[Their] results suggest that Facebook may expose an individual to potentially jealousy-provoking information about their partner, which creates a feedback loop whereby heightened jealousy leads to increased surveillance of a partner’s Facebook page. Persistent surveillance results in further exposure to jealousy-provoking information” (Muise, Christofides, Desmarais, 2009).

I used an outside source and a TV show but I'm not sure how to really do the citations correctly. Also I put an asterisk next to the names and on word I put a foot note saying that an asterisk means that the name has been changed to protect privacy.