Social Media’s Role in Romantic Partners’ Retroactive Jealousy: Social Comparison, Uncertainty, and Information Seeking

Abstract

Social media often have a dark side in romantic relationships. Affordances such as persistence, association, and visibility can promote romantic jealousy and the salience of relationship threats, including ex-partners. Retroactive jealousy occurs when a person feels upset about their partner’s romantic history even though ex-partners are not actively interfering in the current relationship. Interviews (N = 36) probed how participants felt social networking sites (SNSs) promoted and mitigated retroactive romantic jealousy. Furthermore, we examined the consequences of these experiences. Participants indicated that SNSs lead to retroactive jealousy via social comparison, digital remnants, and relational uncertainty. In addition, participants used SNSs to gather information or monitor their partners. These information-seeking activities allowed them to disparage a romantic partner’s exes; avoid direct, interactive information seeking about exes; and digitally fact-check information the partner disclosed. Some participants reframed information about the ex-relationship or actively avoided SNSs to reduce retroactive jealousy. Although SNSs may be used in an attempt to mitigate retroactive jealousy, our findings suggest this strategy may backfire in some cases.