{"id":12343,"date":"2026-02-20T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/?p=12343"},"modified":"2026-01-30T13:19:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:19:29","slug":"social-media-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/social-media-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"How Social Media Shapes Our Expectations About Relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe it doesn\u2019t need to be stated so obviously as I think most of us would agree that social media has a strong influence on how we see the world. Unfortunately, it also sets us up for very unrealistic ideas of what romantic relationships look like. We end up having expectations about romance, communication, intimacy and happiness that are simply often far from reality. In fact, a recent survey found that 65% of Americans believe social media pushes unrealistic romantic expectations<\/strong>,<\/strong> such as luxury dates, extravagant proposals, or idealized public displays of affection as examples.<\/p>\n

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Again, maybe I\u2019m stating the obvious, but if we examine what people post, we can all admit that most of what we see are posts that show snapshots of a person\u2019s seemingly \u201cperfect\u201d life. Most of us post reels of the best moments of our lives, and not our struggles. This gives the impression that everyone but us is having a great life. In real life, all relationships have their difficulties or boring moments which are most certainly not posted. The result of this constant barrage of \u201cperfect\u201d posts can make us feel like our own relationship is not good enough. This constant comparing of relationships can lower self-esteem, trigger insecurity and create jealousy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, young people who have grown up with social media experience a certain pressure to look and act a certain way. They feel the expectation to look happy all the time, to declare their love publicly (one study found that for younger adults, 48% say social media is important for showing affection to their partner), to post often, which then leads to focusing more on appearances rather than on real connections. Interestingly, among millennials, 81% say social media allows them to make their relationship \u201cappear\u201d<\/em> better than it actually is, thus shaping how others expect<\/em> relationships to look.<\/p>\n

Of course, I do not want to imply that social media is all bad. Many of us find real connections, support and relationship advice in the form of short reels for example. The problem is that these short videos can oversimplify relationships and may discourage people from working through their problems. On the other hand, these videos can spark healthy conversations, promote boundaries, and offer opportunities for learning about love and intimacy.<\/p>\n

I think we can all agree that social media can shape our expectations in powerful ways. Media literacy is needed more than ever so that we understand how the content we consume is often incomplete, edited, and simply not authentic. If we understand this, it helps us form more realistic views of love and relationships.<\/p>\n

Another area that merits discussion as it relates to social media and its potential impact on relationships, is how<\/em> adults use social media. In my practice, what I often see is couples who are struggling with feelings of betrayal, insecurity and jealousy because of their partner\u2019s interactions with others online. Consider this statistic: In adults whose partner uses social media, 23% have felt jealous or unsure about their relationship because of how their partner interacts with others online, with that number climbing to 34% for people under 30. This leads us to reconsider the definition of cheating. Today, many people feel betrayed and cheated on when their partner \u201cfollows,\u201d \u201clikes\u201d or comments on certain people\u2019s (usually someone considered hot) posts. Conversations about boundaries and what we feel is betrayal are absolutely necessary for today\u2019s relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe it doesn\u2019t need to be stated so obviously as I think most of us would agree that social media has a strong influence on how we see the world. Unfortunately, it also sets us up for very unrealistic ideas of what romantic relationships look like. We end up having expectations about romance, communication, intimacy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":12345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,13],"tags":[647,2681,2347,431,37,205,955],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12343"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12361,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12343\/revisions\/12361"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pornhub.com\/sex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}