Social Media and Relationships

The screen between you and the person sitting right next to you.

More Cartoons ↓

There is a particular kind of loneliness that happens when you are sitting next to someone you love and they are scrolling. Researcher James Roberts coined the term "phubbing" -- phone snubbing -- to describe the act of prioritizing your device over the person in front of you, and his studies found that phubbing in romantic relationships directly predicts lower relationship satisfaction, higher conflict, and even symptoms of depression in the partner being ignored. Brandon McDaniel's research on "technoference" -- technology-based interference in couple relationships -- showed that even minor, everyday interruptions from phones during conversations, meals, and moments of connection erode the quality of the relationship over time. But phubbing is only one layer. Social media also introduces new forms of surveillance and suspicion: checking a partner's followers, monitoring their likes, reading into who they interact with online. What used to require effort -- snooping through mail, following someone -- now takes a thumb swipe. Comparison is another quiet poison. You see other couples posting highlight reels -- vacations, surprise gifts, tearful anniversary tributes -- and your Tuesday night on the couch starts to feel insufficient. Research on social comparison theory, originally proposed by Leon Festinger, confirms that upward comparisons to idealized portrayals of relationships consistently lower satisfaction with your own. Then there is performative intimacy -- the pressure to document your relationship for an audience, to prove it is real and good and worth envying. When the relationship becomes content, something essential shifts. You stop experiencing moments and start curating them. The phone was supposed to keep you connected. Instead, it often becomes the wall you build together without realizing it.

Key Takeaway

The phone was supposed to keep you connected -- instead it often becomes the wall you build together without realizing it.

A Better Approach
Two stick figures sitting on a couch together, each staring at their own phone, a visible gap of empty space glowing between them
Notice the moments you reach for your phone instead of reaching for your partner.
A stick figure scrolling through another couple's vacation photos, then looking at their own partner on the couch with a disappointed expression
You are comparing your behind-the-scenes to someone else's highlight reel.
A stick figure holding up a phone to film a romantic dinner, the partner across the table looking deflated as the moment becomes a performance
When you document the moment instead of living it, the relationship becomes content.
Two stick figures placing their phones face-down on a table and looking at each other, the gap between them visibly smaller and warmer
Put the phone down. The person in front of you is the connection that matters.

Social Media and Relationships Cartoons