How do technology and social networks affect the couple?

"Privacy has killed and socially killed her.”Pete Cashmore, Mashable CEO

• Pedro, constantly consults his phone when eating with his partner and that has led him to great discussions with Beatriz because he feels ignored.
• Bertha, shares the password of her cell phone with her boyfriend David, and he taking advantage of his absence has thoroughly reviewed each and every one of her beloved messages, searching the WhatsApp, an infidelity test.
• Armando has an application to find sexual couples, what he ignored is that his current girlfriend also has the same application when they had promised, a fidelity agreement.
• Guillermina received the love message of her ex, and Ricardo her boyfriend, enraged the degree of cutting her, but before she slapped her.

What are all these people in common? They use technology, have social networks and their behaviors have generated discussions and many problems.

Content

• Background
• What is a social network?
• Structure and operation of a social network
• The impact of the use of couple networks
• Pleasure centers are activated as a drug and networks catch
• Positive and negative effects of the use of technology and social networks
• Considerations of the use of social networks when living as a couple
• Recommendations for the use of social networks as a couple
  • Bibliography

Background

Technology involves ideas and knowledge to solve specific problems and meet the needs of individuals. Its development covers areas as diverse as: medicine, space trips, the location of a street or communicating with the couple to specify an appointment. To do this, it has devices (hardware) and specialized programs (software) that allow us to communicate, monitor the house while we are on vacation or track a shipment to the other side of the world.

Today, it would be very difficult to think about the world without these supports, that in the paradox complicate us and facilitate life, and relationships. We are social and relational beings and our essence is communication with others. Just this aspect is the most distorted with the use of technology in combination with our personality and social networks.

The use of electronic devices (iPads, smartphones, tablets, blackberryes and personal computers) in combination with social networks and The way we currently socialize virtually affects who uses them.

What is a social network?

A social network is a type of application, which is used through the Internet with a browser, which serves to connect people with their friends and to make new friends in the process.

On the other hand, All social networks serve to connect people to each other, That is the fundamental objective: to promote and strengthen interpersonal relationships.

At the moment, There are more than 70 social networks Specialized in: Photographs, lifestyles, tourism, mobile, video, meetings, business, for adolescents and young adults, related to blogs and international social networks. Among the most common we have: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The WhatsApp, it is not exactly a network, but it works as if it were, it is a small program that is installed on the cell phone and allows us to send text messages, multimedia messages such as videos, images, audio, even voice notes.

Connect people goes from the completely colloquial (couple, friends or family) to the most curious and strange: Catmoji and Doggy Talky (aimed at lovers of cats and dogs), Livr (drunk network), lived (all For wine lovers), UNTAppd (specializing in beer drinkers, locates places of interest; breweries and bars), Cloak (Network for antisocial Your intimate things), Meetattheairport (to make dating all kinds when you travel by plane; romance, friendship, travel companion, business), Footballalbum (for futball lovers where you can comment photos, games, plays and everything related With this sport), Mybusymeal (to eat and do business) (Supply, 2014).

Some of the most popular networks to interact and get sexual partner, fun or just to chat are: Tinder, Meetic, Badoo, Happn, Muapp, Adoptauntio, Bumble, Jaha, Teasr; Gropyfy, Grindr, Wapa, Desire, Couple, 3nder, Miumeet, Okcupid, Ashley Madison, Eharmony and Good2go among others (Alcolea, 2016).

The immediacy in communication can be an extremely important element When it comes to knowing something about the couple or people around us as it happens with concern for a relative in case of an earthquake. You can approach even being kilometers away, but also in the paradox you can get away if we discover any unwanted message from the couple towards another person that we are not. Above all, if it is an intimate message. It can be the use of some application to link or get a couple like those mentioned above or it can be their personal network and contact with an ex -partner, examination, neighbor or work partner or the school.

Structure and operation of a social network

It is a social structure composed of people, organizations or entities that are connected to each other, by one or several types of relationships such as: friendly, kinship, economic, sexual relations, educational, common interests, experimentation of the same beliefs, between Other possibilities (Christakis & Fowler, 2010).

Two people who communicate is already a social network or day, Although there are many and have different formats.

Social networks have several characteristics:

• You can see two elements:
  • Connection or links (number of people we have on the network) and
  • Contagion: We tend to copy the behavior of those with whom we are connected. We are affected by the people with whom we are connected and their emotional states (happiness, hate, violence, fashions).
• It has contagion rules:
  • It is we who shape our network. We have a tendency to choose the same (homophilia). Our network shapes us. Our friends influence us. We surround ourselves with healthy or sick people. Our friends's friends influence the way we behave and vice versa. Many times we lose control of the network, because it has its own life.
• The interaction of the members on the network:
  • The key to understanding networks is to understand the ties that unite or move away people. All on the network are thinking beings. In the networks they are strengthened (sympathy, friendship) or destroyed (antipathy, violence) The links and reactions become more intense (love and hate).
• Of training and operation:
  • Friends of my friends are my friends
  • The enemies of my enemies are my freinds
  • My friend's enemies are my enemies.

And all this means that we are connected (Christakis & Fowler, 2010).

The impact of the use of couple networks

It is estimated worldwide that the use of Facebook, has caused 28 million divorces, that is, it is the cause of separation of one in five divorces. It is estimated that in Mexico 30% of users have had problems with their partners due to the use of this network (Elpais.com.CO, 2013).

The constant use of the networks puts us in a virtual but open world where we can have access to the location of the other person, the friends with whom he lives, the sites of interest he has visited, the people who have given “I like it ”To their publications or even if someone has sent any message to our partner and we do not like it, or even If our partner has aggregate in their social network to your ex or someone who unleashes us jealousy.

The turning point or breakage are: the messages we find and that our partner has sent or sent to our partner or if we find any evidence by hacking their social networks, their mobile or email, it is an equivalent electronic footprint, to the lipstick in the shirt, or the ticket of a hotel.

Although there is no physical test, the brain interprets as real, Any virtual words game, because for him it is the same, although there has never been any physical contact.

In an investigation, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, demonstrates that "We use the same brain machinery when we actively look and when we simply imagine”, Says Nancy Kanwisher, associate professor of Cognitive and Neuronal Sciences of MIT, Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT News, 2000).

Although there is no physical contact with a person Sexting can be practiced (virtual sex) or you can even hire some virtual sex service.

For some couples even knowing that your partner consults erotic pages can be interpreted as virtual infidelity. It also includes being registered in some application to have deliberate sex as in the case of Tinder "That she reaches the doors of the house of those who hire it and even answer Congress personnel to assemble the entire scenario in a real way.

All this also includes messages with intentions to meet someone (known or not) with the intention of having privacy.

Then then, Although there is no real contact with someone in many cases, it represents a real threat to those who live it And it has the same devastating effects as in a face -to -face infidelity.

Pleasure centers are activated as a drug and networks catch

Everything we like we tend to repeat it. Sex can catch us because it generates pleasure. And, with a experience full of adrenaline and dopamine when experiencing virtual or face -to -face encounters A person could be trapped. Looking insistently in the network and living the experience could be interpreted by the brain as any other face -to -face experience. Hence, a person could live in a loop, virtual or face -to -face with different couples seeking diversity as with the famous co -control effect and putting the breaking with his love life as a couple in a couple.

Legend has it that the so -called Coolidge effect owes its name to a somewhat peculiar anecdote. One day in 1924, Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), a thirtieth president of the United States, was visiting his wife Grace on a bird farm on the occasion of campaign events for re-election. When Mrs. Coolidge noticed the sexual vigor of a rooster, she asked the guide about the number of times the animal could mate in a day. Knowing that it was a high figure (about 20 times a day), he was impressed and asked the man to discuss such interesting information to the president. When the latter heard the statistic, he asked the informant if the rooster meetings always occurred with the same chicken. The guide explained that it happened with a different chicken at a time. The president asked him to share that data with Mrs. Coolidge (Lambert, 2017).

Positive and negative effects of the use of technology and social networks

The couple relationship can be affected in many ways in the positive and negative:

In the negative Our partner is dedicated more to virtual life than face -to -face:

• Working and answering emails when you get home.
• Playing (on the phone or on the computer), consulting and attending their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp), entering erotic pages.
• Starting or maintaining an infidelity relationship (real or virtual).

In the positive technology serves us to:

• Strengthen our coexistence ties With: some good morning message, to know the state of health, the location, the change of an appointment, notify of some emergency, send sites of interest or possibilities of buying an article if the couple is not in person, the couple, send love or even erotic messages aimed at the couple and more.

Considerations of the use of social networks when living as a couple

It is important that both have the clarity that There are information that can be controlled, but another definitely does not. For example, if a person comments to the couple in their networks, it is the responsibility of the own involved to put a limit to others. But sometimes the emotionality of a moment like this, the counterpart of the couple is authorized to answer defending their territory and creating uncomfortable situations because most of the time our social networks are open.

It is important Take care of our personal life, and not make a soap opera Where other people are surely not interested in our lives, but sometimes we feel the need to share with other people more intimate moments.

Our personal life is personal and intimate, and many times for sharing our happiness in the networks, we generate problems or envy that we can very well avoid and live them fully in intimacy.

Recommendations for the use of social networks as a couple

Without being intrusive with the other person it will be worth establishing some exclusive rules of each couple. A, just some examples of them go, but they are the responsibility of each couple.

• Leave the mobile at eating.
• Do not answer message while it's time to sleep or make love.
• Put a schedule for face -to -face coexistence.
• Agree in what cases yes and which do not? You can share the keys or passwords of social networks or electronic devices (mobile or personal computer).
• Establish the rules or times of virtual or face -to -face coexistence.
• Take into consideration that aspects can control of networks and which others not, so that third parties (family, friends, acquaintances or unknown) do not generate additional conflicts in everyday life.
• Communicate to the couple if you have new technological devices and know the networks they officially use, as well as the type of content that is expected to contain.
• Establish a loyalty commitment in virtual or face -to -face, in which the most important thing is the coexistence of the couple itself.
• Give.
• If things get out of control, go to professional therapeutic aid.

Bibliography

• Supply (2014) The 10 most strange social networks, consulted on February 21, 2018, in network: http: // www.ABC.ES/TECNOLOGIA/TOP/20140321/ABCI-PAGINAS-Extravagant-Puliars-201403210920_1.HTML
• Alcolea r. (2016) The 20 best apps to link, Womanhoy, consulted on February 21, 2018, in Red: http: // www.Womanhoy.com/live/sex-part.HTML
• Christakis n. & Fowler J. (2010) Concepted, Editorial Taurus, Mexico.
• The country.com.CO (2013) Studies reveal that Facebook has caused 28 million divorces, consulted on February 21, 2018, in network: http: // www.the country.com.CO/World/Studies-Revelan-Que-Facebook-Ha-Provocado-28-Millones-De-Divorcios.HTML
• Lambert k. (2017) sex in rodents, research and science (notebooks & brain), 1st four -month period 2017, Spain.
• MIT News (2000) See and imagine are the same for the brain, altruistic gen, consulted on February 21, 2018, in network: http: // www.genaltruistic.com/notes/00000316.htm