
Love has been around since the beginning of time, and is much older than social media. When the internet came to life, online dating services were born shortly after. People who were having a hard time finding the loves of their lives, or the flings of the moment, had a broader pool of applicants to choose from. Great idea to some, lame idea to others. Either way, you can't go a week without seeing or hearing ads for E-Harmony or Match.com.
When social media and networking sites such as Friendster and MySpace began to appear, it was another platform to broadcast that you were either single and ready to mingle, or found your fish in the sea. Harmless right? Wrong. Social media has been named an axe in many budding relationships due to privacy, or lack thereof.
MySpace started many relationships, the way other websites can. You're "meeting" new people, and getting to know them, where you may not have been able to. Finding people who live near you was a simple search away. For those couples who were already in relationships, however, the famous Top 8 was death to many. "Why am I not number 1?" was a constant question, if the significant other was on the list at all. Flirtatious comments also interfered.
Facebook alerts your friends via their news feed when someone has changed their relationship status. I've chosen to ignore the people whose statuses change on a weekly basis, but I have gotten some breaking news when it came to the breaking up between friends of mine. There's been numerous debates like "is it okay to break up via Facebook?" Relationship statuses were taken up a notch when you were able to tag you S.O. as the person you are in a relationship with. "Why didn't you put my name?!" Don't forget to check who tagged you in photos on the night you said you were staying home but decided to go out. Oh the agony.
Twitter can get people "caught up" by being able to see who people are following. There have been plenty of fall outs due to unfollowing someone, and make no mistake, the same is true when it comes to not following your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife. "Are you hiding something from me?" Or if you're following the wrong person, getting mentioned by particular individuals, the list just goes on.
LinkedIn can hurt your professional relationships if you decide to vent about your relationship woes on Twitter and forgot your updates cross post on LinkedIn. Trust me when I say that's not what your colleagues feel like reading about.
I'm not saying social media is the root of all evil when it comes to being spoken for, but it does leave room for arguments and cyber snooping. Make sure the person you're with is on the same page as you when it comes to maintaining your status online.