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LOGAN — The amount of time you spend on social media could be a reflection on your marriage, according to a new study done by researchers at Utah State University.
The study, which involved 1,500 from across the nation, looked into how media affects marriage and found more of that blame seems to fall on men.
"It didn't really matter how much time the women spent on social media networking websites; but the more that the husband spent on those types of websites, the worse the marriage was," said Jeffrey Dew, researcher and associate professor in USU's Department of Family, Consumer and Human Development.
Dew conducted the study with Sarah Tulane, PhD, and said television use didn't seem to have an effect on marital quality. The more interesting findings were in social media and video games, he said.
"It didn't matter how much either spouse used video games, as long as it was the same amount of time that the other spouse was spending," Dew said.
However, the study found if one spouse spent a significant amount more time on gaming than the other, it was a sign of marital stress.
But Dew is still not sure why men's use of social media makes more of an impact than women's. The good news, he said, is social media rarely seemed to indicate a major marital problem.
Still, social media use may be a worthwhile subject for couples to talk about.
"I think the big thing is to talk about expectations as a couple, like how much media use both of you are going to use, what your expectations are," Dew said.
The study did not look at the specific content couples were looking at or whether social media use was more a cause or a reflection of a problem. Dew said that could be the focus of a future study.
