Rich Zeoli Talks To La Salle's Dr. Donna Tonrey About Social Media And Relationships
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- La Salle University's Director of their Counseling and Family Therapy Master's Program, Dr. Donna Tonrey, addressed the impact that social media and, in particular, Facebook is having on marriages.
Tonrey told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that social media exacerbates already existing fault lines in relationships.
"Facebook is becoming the symptom that's happening in the marriages because it's available and people are spending time on it. Unfortunately people are believing that the relationships on Facebook are real when, in reality, they are not. Then it takes away from the time that the couple spends together. Then it comes down to, the couple is not spending time together, the couple is not communicating as well and then the Facebook and the social media interferes in their relationship and it gets blamed on the Facebook [activity]. It's more of a symptom than the actual problem."
She said interacting with old friends online sometimes make people think they can go back in time.
"Trying to recapture your youth, that's a piece of it. Sometimes there's 10, 20, or 30 years separation from the time they were dating this person. They go back to that time frame when life was a bit freer and not as complicated, thinking they're going to feel that same way with that person again. What happens is, sometimes affairs begin to occur."
However, Tonrey makes clear that these rekindled relationships rarely turn out to be what they seem.
"They find out there was a whole lot of life that happened between. When that begins to come into play, many times people will realize it's their marriage that they have to be paying attention to and that they really can't go back in time the way that they think they can."
