Why Loose Lips Sink Relationships
Research shows too much online disclosure will ruin a romance

If nothing else, social media has made it extremely easy for people with loose lips to spill the beans about everything in their lives. Unfortunately, according to research by the University of Kansas, when people let their fingers do the walking and give out too much information about their partner, these virtual loose lips effectively sink their relationships.
And why not? When you’re in a relationship, you expect to share secrets with your partner without those disclosures being broadcast all over the Internet. You also expect your partner to tell you things that they don’t tell everyone else — and when they do, the relationship suffers.
“For the discloser himself or herself, disclosing a lot may lead to lower intimacy and satisfaction….”
“You have the expectation of your partner only telling you some of this important information, but then you see that they’re telling the whole world,” explained researcher Juwon Lee. “So you feel less special and unique.”
In order to get an idea of just how less special and unique people feel when their partner is blabbing about everything all over social media, Lee, along with colleague Omri Gillath, created two fake Facebook accounts and asked study participants how they would feel if they were dating each of these fictional people. One account only had posts about things like sports and the weather, while the other included photos of parties, along with a plethora of complaints about everything from classes to parents to dissatisfaction with weight.
Guess which one study participants said they would have a bad relationship with.
“We asked participants to imagine that these were the Facebook walls of their romantic partner,” said Lee. “We found that people who were given the high-disclosure wall felt less intimacy with the user than people who were given the low-disclosure wall.”
In addition, researchers found that a person who loves to run their mouth online fares no better in the relationship satisfaction department because it opens up a can of worms that can pull them further away from their partner.
“You have the expectation of your partner only telling you some of this important information….”
“For the discloser himself or herself, disclosing a lot may lead to lower intimacy and satisfaction because the more you do it, the more you perceive there are a lot of potential mates out in the world — so a lot of alternative mates that you can choose from,” Lee said. “That may lessen the value of your own relationship.”
The bottom line is, keep your business to yourself. You and your partner will be much happier for it.
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Source:
Oversharing online bad for relationships. University of Kansas. https://news.ku.edu/2013/02/11/research-keep-lover-happy-pipe-down-facebook






