The Role of Facebook in Romantic Relationships: A Study of the Effects of Facebook Official among Korean Young Adults

Abstract

This paper focuses on the possible psychological changes that can emerge when couples in a romantic relationship share SNS activities and publicly announce them to their respective networks. An online survey (n = 517) was conducted among young Korean adults currently in a romantic relationship. This study examined the Facebook use and the portrayals of their romantic relationship on their Facebook profile.

Previous research provides ample evidence that the use of Facebook can change the satisfaction levels of relationships. This study specifically focuses on the importance of Facebook official (FBO) ― officially announcing a romantic relationship online ― in making differences in relationship satisfaction by investigating the amount of romantic relationship information couples publicize on Facebook and the level of between-couple equality in publication.

Results showed that both men and women who were publicly going FBO generally experienced a higher relationship satisfaction than those who were not. Gender differences were detected in the level of satisfaction when publicizing romantic relationship status on Facebook. Generally men experienced higher relationship satisfaction than women when publicizing their romantic relationship status online. Men also displayed higher levels of satisfaction when their degree of participation in publicizing romantic relationship on Facebook increased. For women, this factor was not strong enough to alter their overall relationship satisfaction. Lastly, level of equality in Facebook participation positively affected the relationship satisfaction among men. However, for women, again, this did not affect their relationship satisfaction level. Implications of these findings were discussed.