Now here’s something a bit different. A survey by Shotkit, an online community for photographers, reveals that couples who post three or more selfies a week are 128% unhappier in their relationship on average, than those who never post.
The study asked couples to rate the overall happiness in their relationship and found that only a tenth of couples who regularly post updates on social media class themselves as ‘very happy’ compared to nearly half (46%) of those who don’t share their relationship online.
Shotkit surveyed 2,000 UK photographers , aged 18-50, and asked them to rank their relationship happiness, taking into consideration intimacy, communication and trust, as well as how often they post about their relationship on social media.
It was found that over half (52%) of people regularly post pictures of their relationship online (three-plus times a week).
When looking at the age groups most likely to share ‘couples content’, it was found that Gen Z’ers (those born in the mid to late 90s) posted 60% less than Millennials (born 1980 to the mid 90s).
When looking at who were the happiest couples overall, 73% of couples who never shared content ranked themselves as ‘very happy’ or ‘happy’ in their relationship, followed closely by those who share occasionally (anniversaries, birthdays) at 65%.
Those who never or rarely share their relationship online were asked why. The top three reasons were: “privacy”, “embarrassment” and “not regular social media users”. The results also revealed that same sex couples were most likely to share couples content to express ‘proudness’, whereas straight couples were more likely share to express that themselves or their partner were ‘taken,’ ie already in a relationship.
Selfies – post too many and you could be ‘tuning up’ for a row
“We wanted to carry out this research as there are often mixed views on whether posting on social media regularly has positive effects on us and our relationships,” said Martin Stevens of Shotkit.
“We expected there to be some disparities with the survey, but we didn’t know quite how much of a difference it could make, 128% happier is a huge amount… this isn’t to say that all social media sharing is bad, of course not. Perhaps the saying ‘too much of a good thing’ is true in this case.”
