According to Media Bistro, the amount of people to use social media in the next five years will be an impressive 2.55 billion, more than a quarter of the world’s total population. In the past decade, sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become part of our daily lives, whether we argue against it, or for it. But if more than half of America uses social media, [link] how does this affect people and our personal relationships?

As the old saying goes, “everything in moderation.” This applies to social media in numerous ways.

Oversharing has become a sort of problem with this new age of instant sharing online. People may update their Facebook statuses multiple times a day (in some cases multiple times an hour) about anything that happens to be on their mind. This can have a negative impact towards themselves. When sharing information on the internet, it is wise to know just who is reading your last post. If the privacy settings aren’t configured right, your post might just be seen by many people outside of your friends list. Twitter is less able to block certain people from seeing a Twitter account. If somebody shares something personal that somebody might take offense to, odds are if not being careful that tweet could start an argument. Same with any other social connecting site.

Alexis Stalker, a freshman at Milford High, says it doesn’t impact her very much, as she doesn’t use it often.

In contrast to some of her peers, she says that “I’m not really addicted to it at all. Compared to some others, I would still rather talk to my friends face to face than through a screen.”

According to CNN, the best thing to do when dating somebody who also use a social networking site is to trust a person. Don’t be constantly checking up on their profile to know if where he said he was going is actually where he went. Another important thing to note: if something problematic does occur online, it’s best not to confront them online too. It will make a private matter public, and will just make matters worse for both parties.

Harmony Groom, a junior, is a big advocate of social media. Her motto about social media is that the social media shouldn’t be blamed, and that it’s the individual person that chooses to create problems online.

“If they’re the kind of person to start an argument in real life,” Groom states, “then they’re just as likely to start one online.” From hours on to say that there are more pros than cons when it comes to social media, and that the social media experience each person has depends solely on how responsible the person is.

This article from madamenoire takes the same stance as Groom. [link] It states, “Social media doesn’t ruin relationships, people do. Social media just gives them a platform to do what they’ve been doing anyway.” If a person is easily jealous, social media becomes a war battleground. Just as if their partner may have to many girl ‘friends’, they might also become jealous of online friendships. Every ‘like’ or ‘retweet’ their partner does can translate to them attempting to flirt, as seen from their point of view, and it’s no different than seeing their partner talk to other people. It’s bound to happen, regardless of a social media outlet.

Am interesting fact, however, according to The Guardian, two-thirds of divorces have something to do with social media, says lawyers. What can be said about this, is that more evidence is being found about spouses easier than before, and most of them coming from Facebook. Back before the internet, spouses could keep more of their information private, and it was harder to find the evidence of someone cheating or the like. With evidence being easier to find nowadays, most people would think that there are more divorces, but the statistics say otherwise. In fact, the rest of divorces has stayed the same, if not declined slightly, in the past decade.

In this particular article, [link] the author says her recent breakup was caused by social media. It started out when her partner started using multiple social networking sites. He connected with a woman, and the author claims he knew the woman would come between the two. After an incident, the two broke up, but was it really the fault of an internet site?

Ethan Dailey, a senior, says that it’s up to the people on the relationship to make things work or not, and the blame should not be put on the website. Dailey goes on to say that “Relationships thrive off of actual face to face interaction. Interaction over social media just doesn’t cut it.”

From all of this evidence, it can be said that social media by itself is not the initial cause of the problems in a relationship, and it is the people, not the technology, who should be held responsible for their actions and words said online.