Romantic Relationships and Instagram: How Relationship Duration and Gender Affect the Frequency of Social Media Posts
Faculty Mentor(s)
Dr. Jayson L. Dibble, Department of Communication
Document Type
Poster
Event Date
4-21-2017
Abstract
Relationship maintenance, or participating in behaviors to keep romantic partners satisfied, has been discussed as being an important part of romantic relationships for the last few decades. In recent years, relationship maintenance has been more prevalent through the use of social networking sites. We predicted that Instagram posts about one’s relationship would be most frequent at the beginning of the relationship, and would decrease the longer the relationship persists. To test our prediction, we surveyed participants (N = 81) who were in committed romantic relationships and measured the length of their relationship as well as the frequency with which they post about their relationship on Instagram. Contrary to our prediction, relationship length was positively associated with Instagram posting frequency. Also, women posted slightly more than did men.
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