# Has social media fundamentally changed marriage relationships? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 18, 2017, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893 "2017-05-18T04:07:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893/21 "2017-05-20T14:57:04Z")
I suggest that it isn’t so much that social media CHANGED anything, as that having it be so public, OPENLY ILLUSTRATED IT ALL. By the way, the reason why a smart divorce lawyer will tell you to lay off social media until the proceedings are complete, isn’t because they think that social media magically causes things to happen. It’s because they want you to provide your opposition as little chance to interfere with your goals as possible. That’s why it DOES matter in some cases, but DOESN’T matter in others. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2017, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893/22 "2017-05-20T15:52:53Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Not so long ago, it would have been very strange for a man to call a married woman on the phone about anything personal. Really? I question this basic premice. People navigate in different circles that have different expected codes of conduct (not just related to social class or geography : you tend to associate with people with whom you share values and habbits, and then tend to assume that the norm in your little group is the general norm), and I’m not convinced that your experience is more representative than mine (where people would have exactly zero issue with calling a married acquaintance or friend of the opposite sex). ETA : noticing that I’m about the 457th poster making this point. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893/23 "2017-05-22T06:01:50Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Not so long ago, it would have been very strange for a man to call a married woman on the phone about anything personal. Sure, men and women worked together but there was an exclusion zone until there wasn’t and they snuck off and had an affair. Marriage wasn’t just a chastity belt to the rest of the world. It was ownership on both sides. That idea has changed quite rapidly in less than a decade. > > Now you have Facebook, Instagram and everything else where people can keep in constant contact with old flings, friends and new acquaintances. I personally don’t think that is a bad thing at all because my views of marriage are roughly on par with chattel slavery but I know not everyone feels that way. > > The one thing that I do know is the first thing that divorce lawyers advise their clients these days is to close their social media accounts. That is very very telling and spooky in my opinion. > > How do you think the internet age is affecting marriage now and in the future? People are becoming less social now days thanks to Facebook, Instagram, twitter and texting. Before people would meat up and hang out with friends at mall, park,video arcade, diner, bar or cafe so on. People are also starting relationships, families having kids and sex later in life than before thanks to Facebook, Instagram, twitter and texting. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893/24 "2017-05-22T13:45:52Z")
> [@sweat209](#): > > People are also starting relationships, families having kids and sex later in life than before thanks to Facebook, Instagram, twitter and texting. Not only do I see no evidence for that, I don’t even think there could _be_ evidence for that, yet. Most of these technologies are only a few years old. I think it’s far more likely that the long-term trends of more higher education and more women working in careers is responsible for the (slow) movement toward later marriages. As for relationships and sex, there seems to be plenty of it going on at young ages these days, too, although in places with rational sex education _pregnancies_ are trending later in life (and are more or less unchanged in places with “abstinence-only” or no sex ed). Remember these technologies brought us “sexting” and Tinder, too. I think it’ll be a while before their long-term effects (if any) are known. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893/25 "2017-05-22T15:28:28Z")
> [@](#): > > As for relationships and sex, there seems to be plenty of it going on at young ages these days, too, although in places with rational sex education _pregnancies_ are trending later in life In the US, teens are losing their virginity (self-reported) at later ages than a few decades ago. It’s self-reported, so you can’t count on absolute truth, but I’ve read several articles like [this one](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/22/why-american-teenagers-are-having-much-less-sex/) and [this one](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cdc-survey-finds-decline-risky-behaviors-teens-article-1.2667880) on the subject. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-social-media-fundamentally-changed-marriage-relationships/786893.md?page=1)