While some of these changes have been undeniably good, like a fabulous chocolate cake – if you eat too much of it, there are negative repercussions. A study conducted by Stanford University in 2006 revealed that those typical exhibiting behavior associated with Internet abuse were as high as one in eight. And, consequences of Internet addiction are not unlike that of other substance abuse addictions.

Just because Internet abuse is legal doesn’t mean it’s safe or healthy. Many couples have gotten divorced because of Internet addiction. Families have been torn apart. People have lost their jobs. The stronghold of Internet addiction is not to be ignored. Other physical symptoms of Internet addiction include sleep loss, back pain, eye strain, and carpal tunnel.

Facebook, in particular, has had a profound impact on personal relationships. Boasting approximately 500 million users, the social media website has become one of the most popular ways for friends and family to keep in touch. In fact, it has also helped us coin the term “Facebook stalking.”

For one Cleveland woman, Lynn France, Facebook stalking turned into a nightmare when she suspected her husband was cheating. What she found was that her husband had been leading a double life. She did a search on his apparent mistress and stumbled across photos of the mistress and her husband getting married at Disney World in Florida. France and her husband were still together at the time.

Others account how Facebook addictions have destroyed their marriages because one spouse spent too much time online in a fantasy world versus investing time in the marriage. It can also pave the way for emotional and physical infidelity as unhappy partners seek communication online with others. TheTechJournal.com reports that the number of divorces citing Facebook involvement is on the rise. A March article published at the site entitled, “Facebook is the new cause of divorce,” claims that some divorce attorneys see Facebook referenced in as many as 20 percent of their cases.

A new study by the consumer electronics website Retrevo sought to determine just how obsessed people have become with social media websites. They polled 1000 Americans and discovered that almost half admitted to updating their Facebook or Twitter status during the night or first thing in the morning upon waking. About 28 percent of iPhone users confessed to checking these sites before they even got out of bed.

While not everyone using these social media platforms is addicted, they clearly can be a cause for concern. If the time spent on Facebook or Twitter is interfering with your normal everyday life or if you are spending several hours a day online checking these sites, you might have a problem. Support groups such as netaddiction.com can offer help. Setting limits and boundaries for time spent online may also help keep your real-life personal relationships intact.

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Is TV Fueling Infidelity?

Are television writers simply reflecting the realities of modern life, or do they have the power to influence the way we behave?

Television And Behavior

When it comes to how television influences behavior, much of the discussion has focused on children and things like violence and aggression. There is plenty of scholarly research that suggests watching television and other types of media have an influence on the behaviors of children. Numerous studies have found that violent television programming makes kids behave more aggressively, that seeing sex on TV can influence teens to become sexually active earlier and that TV influences how young people view social roles.

What is not clear is how television impacts adults. It is assumed that as fully-formed adults, we can watch programs and not be influenced by what we see. As a result, there’s almost no research to tell us if this is really true. If you believe that advertising works, then it would seem silly to assume that television programming has no impact on how we, as adults, behave in the real world.

The Rise In Infidelity?

It seems like cheating is everywhere, but is it really more common than in the past? Getting exact and reliable numbers on how many adults have affairs or commit an act of cheating is difficult. It relies on self-reporting, which is notoriously unreliable. When surveyed, participants are not always honest, even when the results are kept anonymous. Informal surveys put cheating rates somewhere between 25 percent and 70 percent for women and 40 percent to 80 for men, which are pretty wide margins. More scientific analyses of cheating report that any relationship has a 25 percent chance of experiencing an incident of infidelity. The numbers are varied and inconclusive.

Can TV Cause More Cheating?

While some news sources will claim that infidelity is on the rise and, in fact, a modern epidemic, the statistics don’t tell such a clear story. We may be talking more about infidelity, and that may create a greater awareness, which in turn leads to more television shows featuring affairs. If we’re talking about it, then surely TV will follow suit. Another factor in the discussion that can’t be ignored is the Internet. Being online makes it easier to cheat than ever before, but this doesn’t necessarily mean we are doing it more often.

The other side of the equation is the question of TV’s influence on our behavior. If we see more cheating on television, will we do it more often? It’s hard to say, but what is known for sure is that television does a good job of glamorizing and normalizing bad behaviors. On TV shows, cheating looks sexy and easy. The glamorization of infidelity could have an impact on how we behave. And when we start to view a behavior as normal, it surely has an effect on the choices we make. There’s a lot of uncertainty in this debate, but one thing is clear: your relationship is yours to shape. If you have a happy and healthy relationship, infidelity should be the last thing on your mind or your partner’s.

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Four out of five of those same lawyers claim that they have noticed an increase in the amount of evidence from social networking sites, including Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter, being offered into evidence in divorce proceedings. The vast majority of evidence is directly tied to Facebook.

Typical indiscretions include spending an inappropriate amount of time chatting with a friend, engaging in inappropriate or sexually charged conversations, or revealing embarrassing or intimate details about the marital relationship. In the worst cases, the offending spouse may end up engaging in a physical relationship with the Facebook friend. Sadly, many spouses find out about Facebook cheating when the offender forgets to log out of the program or when the “friend” posts inappropriate content or photos on the spouse’s wall for all to see.

Since many states still impose financial penalties on the spouse most responsible for the martial break-up (as opposed to “no-fault” states), these Facebook flings can be costly. The lawyers surveyed, all members of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers (AAML), are so worried about social networking misdeeds that they have begun investigating prospective clients’ Facebook pages before agreeing to accept a divorce case.

In addition to making marital infidelity easier and more public, Facebook also plays an increasingly important role in evidence production in other types of legal cases. Parents who are battling for custody of a child can troll Facebook for evidence of drug or alcohol use or other dangerous behavior that may cause a judge to determine that one parent is less qualified to care for the child. There have also been stories of prosecutors using social networking evidence in criminal cases, as well as government agencies reviewing the sites during immigration proceedings.

While social networking users who do not take advantage of the various privacy tools are obvious targets of legal evidence gatherers, others may be surprised at just how much information is available to third parties. First of all, the content of a user’s social networking account is not immune to a judicial subpoena; Facebook could, at least theoretically, be ordered to turn over the contents of an account if there is enough evidence that the content is relevant to the proceeding.

However, adversaries do not have to go that far to get their hands on useful information if your “friends” are not vigilant about who can read their walls or view their photos. Just because a user’s own account is locked down does not mean that he cannot be tagged in other people’s photos or that comments he makes on other walls will not be viewable by the general public.

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