Malicious Social Surveillance and Negative Implications in Romantic Relationships among Undergraduates

Abstract

In the process of normalizing some surveillance dynamics in a society that has become increasingly more accustomed to infringements of privacy, citizens have been provided with a series of tools that allow them to control their peers. Thus, this paper relates interpersonal electronic surveillance to the negative implications that social networks may have for romantic relationships in the Spanish university context by analyzing three main aspects of interpersonal electronic surveillance: user perception and awareness, the types of pernicious social networking practices involved, and their consequences for romantic relationships. To achieve these objectives, a mixed methodology was used. Specifically, an in-person survey involving 311 respondents and two focus groups of seven and eight members, respectively, were conducted. All of the participants were undergraduate communication students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six. Findings from the current study show that the respondents believed that social networks incited jealousy and promoted control and surveillance practices, thus making romantic relationships more conflictive and artificial. However, they tended to blame individual uses more than the inner workings of social networks. For instance, some respondents regretted having resorted to certain practices, while others justified those practices because they had allowed for the detection of infidelity-related behaviors. In short, in a context in which social surveillance is now the norm, the monitoring and control of partner profiles was generally accepted even though the respondents called for more education about social networking in order to curtail these pernicious practices and to maintain healthier romantic relationships.