Snapchat or Facebook—which one is more likely to elicit romantic jealousy?

The photo-sharing app Snapchat is not yet as popular as Facebook for social networking, but the greater privacy Snapchat may offer could motivate users to share more intimate types of content for different purposes. A new study comparing Snapchat and Facebook use and their effect on romantic relationships is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

The article "Snapchat Elicits More Jealousy Than Facebook: A Comparison of Snapchat and Facebook Use" describes a study comparing how individuals use the two social networking apps, and whether Snapchat, with which messages disappear after only a few seconds and are typically sent to a smaller number of people, affords more private communication and intimate, personal content that could evoke greater jealousy. Authors Sonja Utz and Nicole Muscanell, Knowledge Media Research Center (Tübingen, Germany), and Cameran Khalid (Glasgow University, Scotland), found that behaviors of romantic partners on Snapchat evoked higher levels of jealousy than did the same behaviors on Facebook.

"Although a small preliminary study, this is an important foray into a new communication platform," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium. "And with the January 2015 Snapchat update, which made Best Friends Lists private, one wonders if we will now see the fire of jealousy further inflamed."