THE QUESTION OF what is and is not digital infidelity has haunted monogamous types since cyber pioneers gingerly typed “sex” into ancestral search engines. But it became even more complicated—and even more important for couples to answer—once social media entered our lives, then took over our lives. When Men’s Health writer Lauren Larson began spiraling over the role of social media in her own relationships, she asked a friend, writer Clay Skipper (plus a real expert, Katrin Tiidenberg, Ph.D., a professor at Tallinn University and coauthor of Sex and Social Media), to help her find the line between harmless browsing and Insta infidelity.
LAUREN LARSON: Clay, how much time would you say you tend to spend investigating the social-media activity of your partners?
The filtered, made-for-Instagram version of my answer is new follow, and how is his jawline?” game more than I should have. It has never yielded anything worthwhile, and relationships are stressful enough without social-media paranoia.
