The use of Facebook in romantic relationships: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model predicting relationship visibility.

The purpose of this paper was to document the use of social media in romantic relationships. More specifically, we examined whether the information that people desired to share (i.e., desired relationship visibility) and shared in practice (i.e., actual relationship visibility) about their romantic relationships on Facebook was predicted by their level of relational commitment. A sample of 139 couples, users of Facebook, aged 17 to 30 years, participated in the study. Participants completed questionnaires and used the Friendship application on Facebook (which gathered data directly from their Facebook accounts). The mediating role of desired relationship visibility in the link between relational commitment and actual relationship visibility on Facebook (i.e., declared relationship status and transient relationship visibility) was investigated using path analyses for dyadic data. Results of actor-partner interdependence mediation model analyses confirmed that women's relational commitment was positively associated with their desired relationship visibility on Facebook. Men's and women's desired relationship visibility were, in turn, associated with their own and their partner's declared relationship status and their own transient relationship visibility on Facebook. Our results provided evidence of the dyadic nature of Facebook self-presentations of coupledom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]