Memories bigger threat to romantic relationships than Facebook

Constantly thinking about a potential sexual partner that you once met at your workplace or in the neighbourhood is more detrimental to committed relationships than current friends on Facebook, an interesting research has revealed.

In the Facebook versus memory experiment, participants were shown their friends list to trigger recognition of potential sexual partners.

But the researchers found that Facebook friends were not seen as romantic alternatives that threatened current committed relationships.

"The alternative, romantically desirable partners people keep in their memories are more of a threat to existing relationships than are alternative partners they might consider from scrolling through their list of Facebook friends," explained Michelle Drouin and Daniel Miller from Indiana University-Purdue University and Jayson Dibble from Hope College in Michigan.

Merely thinking about a person one views as a potential romantic partner could lower an individual's relationship satisfaction and commitment to one's current partner, they noted.

The participants in this study were unmarried, younger adults.

"Although the results may not generalise to older, married adults, comparing the power of technology versus the impact of our internal memories on interpersonal relationships is an important area of research," added Brenda K. Wiederhold from Interactive Media Institute in San Diego, California.

The article was published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.