Valentine's Day no doubt saw your Facebook NewsFeed get clogged with post after post of happy couple celebrating their love, with pictures online so that everyone knows about it. If it's not online, it doesn't count, of course.
Yes, it's annoying and nobody really cares about those posts, but it seems that there is a reason behind all this social media bravado: people post about their relationship because they're genuinely in love. Awwww.
A study that looked at the habits of 188 students across the University of Houston and Pennsylvania State University found that "posting about one's relationship on Facebook may be positively related to the quality of the relationship because it symbolizes making a public commitment to the relationship".
According to the lead author of the study, Mai-Ly Steers, the reason that this is happening is because "an individual is highlighting to themselves and to others that the relationship is an integral part of his or her self".
All well and good, but the finding of this study flies in the face of a previous study that showed that people who posted about their relationship on Facebook were actually insecure about their partner's feelings, and attempted to make the relationship more visible as a result. We don't know who to believe anymore, but we do know one thing: almost no one wants to read about your relationship on Facebook.
Via i100
