245 - Your Ex’s Social Media
Why do we stalk our exes’ social media?
Digital self harm: This refers to any behavior that encourages direct or indirect injury to oneself that's accomplished via an online or a digital medium. This can sometimes be a cry for help or support, or proving to oneself that they can take a punch, so to speak, or for cathartic reasons.
Tara C. Marshall, a researcher for the JIARR, theorized that Facebook stalking can possibly obstruct the natural process of getting over an ex. The behavior of digitally stalking an ex is also associated with greater distress over the breakup, protracted longing for an ex-partner, more negative feelings but also more sexual desire for the ex, and lower personal growth.
Additionally, one her Tara C. Marshall’s studies also found that those with an anxious attachment style might be more prone to things like low self-esteem, fear of rejection, and potentially greater jealousy in relationships, and are possibly more likely to Facebook stalk both current and ex-partners.
Cyberstalking counter-spells
Compassion: Recognizing that letting go is a process and not beating yourself up about it when you feel sad or attached to your ex can go a long way to helping you heal. If going back to your ex’s social media is part of your letting go process, then let it happen.
Identify your triggers: Figuring out what sends you down the rabbit hole of your ex’s social media can help you avoid doing so, or at least make you cognizant of why you’re doing it at that point in time.
Disrupt the behavior: This can be done either by putting something between yourself and your ex’s social media to stop you from continuing to engage the behavior, or by quickly diverting your attention when you notice you’re engaging, such as with a video game, or a puzzle.
Be bored: Detoxing from social media or just allowing yourself to be bored instead of checking your phone is healthy behavior to engage in and can help you get back on track. Make yourself put some work into going onto social media, like deleting the app from your phone or something similar.
Get your thoughts and feelings outside of yourself: This can be accomplished through journaling, talking with a therapist, posting to an online forum, or something similar. Getting your thoughts out of your brain can help you process more effectively and work through your emotions in a healthy way.
Fill the space between your ears: Engage in something that just makes you feel good, whether that’s watching videos of puppies and kittens, or going for a run, or reading positive fiction. Engaging in feel-good behavior contributes to your own mood as well as distracting you from unhealthy behavior.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about your ex's social media. Let me pull that up here. "Oh gosh, now they're looking at bad lately. How did they get a bad person to date them?" Oh, no engagement photos. Just kidding. Early/late April fools, we're not talking about.
Emily: We're in October Jase, now.
Jase: We're not talking about your ex's social media, we're talking about the world's ex's social media or everyone's ex's social media.
Emily: The collective acts that we all share.
Jase: Right, and why we find it so freaking interesting. We're going to discuss what research says happens to us when we're stalking an ex online and why it's so easy to get addicted to this behavior as well as some countermeasures or at counterspells to stop yourself from getting sucked into the vortex of visiting your ex's social media over and over again and upsetting yourself and them, so let's do it.
Emily: Boy, here we go.
Dedeker: Well, Emily, you taught us that apparently Pisces are the people who stalk their exes all the time and you are one of them?
Emily: Well, that's me. Yes, I am and it's really just one. It's one that we shared Dedeker, and I think, I don't know, did I get this person off of my social media? I haven't seen anything from them lately and it's been good, but for a while there I was like I'm--
Dedeker: That does prompt a question from me and I guess also by extension to you as well, Jase and to myself, to all of us.
Jase: Okay.
Dedeker: Do you tend to check in on just the most recent ex or on multiple different people? Do you check on people who are not exes?
Emily: It's interesting.
Jase: I would say actually I tend to, if I'm going to look at an ex's social media, it's going to be like an ex from long ago. I'm actually, and maybe I'm an outlier here and that I don't do a lot of social media checking on exes or current partners, which sometimes actually annoys current partners when I don't know about something that they just assume-
Emily: Like "Oh that happens?"
Jase: -they should know because they posted about it on social media, so there's that. Maybe I'm on this other extreme of the spectrum here, but for me, it'd be more likely to be like, "I wonder how whoever is doing from 10 years ago or something." Then I'll be like, "Oh, let me go check that out and see," but that's not really what we're talking about here on this episode. This is more about that like, "Oh, but it's that the person they left me for?" Or like, "Oh, are they, is that what they're into now?" That kind of thing.
Emily: The ex that I had, my very first boyfriend in high school, he married the next woman that he dated and they do have a kid, but I have heard that their relationship is soups tumultuous, but this person really doesn't have much of a social media, so I've definitely in the past stalked his wife's social media and then I didn't see--
Jase: You really have to put an effort there.
Emily: I know, it's embarrassing to talk about it, but yes, I definitely have because I don't know, he was pretty awful to me in the past and part of me is a little vindictive and being like maybe she had to go through that and issue was like, yes, I'm leaving you and all this stuff and so anyways.
Dedeker: No, I want to explore that a little bit because I think we're going to dive into that later in the episode.
Emily: Let's unpack this.
Dedeker: Just unpack this for the world, shall we?
Emily: Okay, sure.
Dedeker: I think that was very interesting that first of all, okay, putting in the effort via his wife's social media to check in on him because he was a terrible person and was it because you were looking for some commiseration, some sense of maybe this person is going through the same BS that I had to go through with this?
Emily: I think a little, but although again, you're not going to post that for the most part., Although some people do post that. It's interesting, there are the types of people that post really long stories about all of the stuff that they're going through and there were people that only post the best and brightest and most beautiful parts of their lives, which is interesting. This person just really didn't post that much, so I really didn't get anything out of it. Wow, I mean it was interesting to look.
Jase: That's an interesting question too just like what goes into whether someone tends to post a more vulnerable and airing out their problems or their grievances social media versus the looks like a travel blog advertisement type of social media. Anyway, yes and that how that might have an effect on an ex who's looking at them for example or a metamour or a current partner or something.
Emily: Well, yes, the metamour thing is really interesting and I think that's something that the non-monogamous community that's very specific to them.
Jase: Right, there's no research on that because it's this relatively small group, just like there's not a lot of polyamory research in general, but yes because this metamour is sort of this weird relationship like that, right?
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: Is that something where we should be following them or should we not be, or whatever it is.
Emily: Yes, because there were people out there and do kitchen table polyamory and there are people out there who are more along the lines of don't ask, don't tell polyamory or just I want to keep my relationships separate.
Jase: More likely just separate.
Emily: Exactly, so along those lines, it is that question of which category of people tends to look more at the social media is of their metamour in which don't or is it just kind of a free for all? Who knows and it depends on the person.
Jase: Well, and that's something that we're going to talk about in this episode is research about looking at an ex's social media and I actually would bet that a lot of the things that they've found can apply also to checking on your metamours or maybe your partner's best friend or whoever it is that might be a source of online suffering for you. That I would bet there's a lot of similarities there, but it would be interesting to eventually see some research that deals more specifically with that situation.
Emily: Well, before we move on, Dedeker, I didn't get anything from you here. What happened? Have you ever done this ever in your life?
Dedeker: Never in my life, I have zero interest in my ex's life.
Emily: Of course, sure.
Dedeker: Though let's move on from there.
Emily: I looked at some of your exes, I'm not going to lie. I've been like how is that fucker doing? No, I'm kidding. I know, I'm a special person.
Dedeker: That has to be the pervasive Pisces in you that even other people's exes you're creeping on. Yes, of course, I have and when I was younger, I found myself perhaps more precluded to doing things like that. Honestly, when I was younger, this is very strange, I had a lot of jealousy of the past as I would feel this weird preemptive jealousy toward people my partner had dated in the past.
Jase: Yes, I definitely experienced that a lot when I was younger too.
Dedeker: Yes, and sometimes would, oh, gosh.
Emily: That's fascinating.
Dedeker: This is an embarrassing moment for me, but I spent hours once, this was years and years and years ago, creeping and obsessively reading the LiveJournal of my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend from high school and I don't know why I did it. I to this day have no idea what was I looking for? What was I getting out of it? Why did I think this is a good idea in the first place? I have no idea, it's not.
Emily: Yes, that fascinating. All right, well, as we dive into this today, just as we were speaking of, remember that all of this doesn't just apply to creeping on an ex's social media because you can also obsessively check-in on metamours and potential metamours. Say you have a partner who's like, "I'm crushing on this person." And you go and look and "Oh my gosh, what is happening? Who is this person?" And it's easy to creep on a crush too, your own crush or even your own partner's social media, especially if you don't live with this person, you don't see them all the time. Maybe they were constellation partner and you're wondering what the heck is going on there? We're going to dive into quite a lot of that today.
Dedeker: As we dive in, I want to talk about, why I wanted to talk about this subject in the first place. I'm going to give a little prelude if you will--
Emily: In C sharp minor.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: I'm sorry. That's a Rachmaninoff reference for all y'all out there.
Dedeker: A prelude in C sharp minor on a concept known as digital self-harm. I'm going to give a really quick content warning on this. We're going to be talking about, just very briefly, some self-harm behaviors. We're not going to talk about it this entire episode, just for the next two or three minutes, so if that's something that's difficult for you to hear right now, go ahead and skip past two or three minutes and then we should be good. I was introduced to this concept of digital self-harm a few weeks ago, and it really intrigued me. I started looking into it. Have the two of you heard this term before?
Jase: No. The first I heard about it was from you planning this episode.
Dedeker: Okay, great. Very broadly, the term digital self-harm refers to any behavior that encourages direct or indirect injury to oneself that's accomplished via an online or a digital medium. This may refer to things like there's a huge online community that's pro-eating disorder, where people help encourage each other to maintain this kind of self-harming behaviors, essentially. There's also online communities that encourage cutting, there's online communities where you post a selfie of yourself knowing that the feedback that you're going to get is all going to be attacks on your personal looks, things like that.
Emily: Wait, for like feedback or something?
Dedeker: Yes. For instance, on 4chan, I just learned about this, of course, but it's not just 4chan. There are other places that do this as well that trans women who are in transition will post pictures of themselves for feedback, but knowing that it's not a very supportive community, knowing that the community that's going to attack every little tiny thing.
Jase: Knowing that this is going to cause some upset but doing it knowing that.
Dedeker: Doing it anyway. I think personally that nondigital self-harm, in general, there are differing degrees of intensity. In my opinion, I think that digital self-harm could also apply to behaviors like intentionally seeking out news stories or blogs or content that you know is going to make you upset or "hate following someone" who really gets under your skin or that you really harshly disagree with and not in a productive kind of way, like just a straight-up hatred kind of way. Or things like obsessively checking your ex's social media when it makes you feel really bad, which is what we're talking about today.
Now, the thing is, I wanted to do an episode that was all about digital self-harm, but that is not really a problem. Right now, if you Google the term digital self-harm, you'll find that that term is mostly being used to refer to a specific new phenomenon that we're seeing with teenagers who engage in this practice of creating fake social media accounts and then publicly bully themselves from that account.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: I've never heard of this before.
Dedeker: I never heard of it either, but it's a thing. It's a thing. It's being studied. There are a number of studies that are being published.
Emily: Why?
Dedeker: Well, what are your theories? What do you think?
Emily: I guess it just the idea that I know as a younger person, and even really up until maybe a year and a half ago, I definitely at times physically, but absolutely mentally had a lot of like internal self-hatred. It's, in my opinion, an extension of that to do it via social media or via Facebook or wherever places in which people can get an outward showing of self-hatred or self-harm. Because I do remember like any self-harm that I engaged in that was physical felt at times like a catharsis. I think, in essence, that is almost the way in which maybe these people are feeling or are going or exercising their own self-harm.
Dedeker: Yes. It opens up these broader questions of why do people self-harm at all, right? It's a variety of reasons behind that. What they find when they studied this phenomenon and teenagers is, there's a variety of reasons for some people. It's an attention-seeking behavior and not in a vapid sort of way but in a cry for help sort of way. It's sometimes a cry for help for support. Sometimes, there's something about, if I beat my bullies to the punch, then I can prove to myself that I can take it, and I can insult myself where I have control over it before someone else comes along and insults me or attacks me in some way? Or can be cathartic, like you said.
Again, it starts to seep into all the myriad complex, nuanced reasons why people self-harm in general. This episode is titled your Ex's Social Media instead of Digital Self-harm because I didn't want to be misleading and make people think that we're talking about this topic on teenagers publicly digitally bullying themselves for this entire episode. We are focusing on the specific behavior of obsessively checking on ex's social media, but as you're listening, I want you to also think about similar behaviors that you may partake in digitally that could be harming you because a lot of this information is going to be relevant to that as well. That's the end of my prelude.
Jase: All right, so let's talk about the research that is relevant to what we're talking about. We're going to start off looking at multiple studies published in the Journal of the International Association for Relationship Research or the JIARR.
Emily: Okay, what? You mean the J--?
Jase: The Journal of the International Association for Relationship Research, JIARR.
Emily: JIARR.
Jase: Specifically, it's studies that are facilitated by Tara C. Marshall, who's a researcher there who writes and researchers about this subject of looking at your ex's social media quite a bit.
First off, her research found that a third of people in a relationship, at all, admitted that they "very often" looked at their partner's Facebook pages, so their current partner right now, that they very often looked at their Facebook page. About the same number, so again, about a third, admitted that they Facebook-stalked an ex-partner through Facebook at least once a week.
Emily: Wow, that's a lot. I don't think I'm not high. No way. I don't even know if I've ever been that high. That's a lot. That's fascinating.
Jase: It's interesting that one-third admit to very often looking at their current partner's Facebook, and also that a third admit they've stalked an ex-partner through Facebook at least once a week. I wonder if that's the same third or if those are different. How much overlap there is. Unfortunately, we don't know. I don't have those numbers, but I wonder how much of that has to do with people who are more obsessively checking Facebook period, and it's, well, what am I going to check while I'm here? Oh, these things come to mind because they're what I'm thinking about whether it's a positive or a negative thing. I don't know. That's a theory.
Emily: Yes, absolutely. She also theorizes that Facebook stalking may obstruct the natural process of getting over an ex, which is completely understandable. If somebody is in your face all the time, whether you see them at the grocery store or the place that you go to often that you used to go together, or if you're literally just looking on Facebook over and over again, that completely makes sense that you wouldn't get over them as easily.
The study found that this behavior was associated with greater distress over the breakup, protracted longing for an ex-partner, both more negative feelings and more sexual desire for the ex and lower personal growth. Fascinating. More sexual desire for the ex, but also more negative feelings. Because you do wonder like I've definitely been around people that are either very happy that they broke up with someone, or in retrospect, feel like they actually were amazing, and I wish that I was still with them in some way or I feel really guilty for breaking up with them or et cetera, et cetera. That's fascinating that you can either have negative feelings and/or more sexual desire.
Dedeker: It is fascinating. I don't know if it's necessarily surprising because breakups are this weird, messy thing that don't produce black and white feelings within us all the time. Sometimes they do, but not all the time. It is this weird thing of, often, if it's maybe a more unhealthy or more destructive breakup, it is a mix of I still have these feelings of love and I still have these feelings of attachment and attraction combined with feelings of aversion and pain from the pain that was caused to me either in the relationship or in the breakup, and that's a weird maelstrom of emotions to deal with.
Emily: Yes, it absolutely is.
Jase: Yes, and it makes me think of, back when we actually had physical copies of photographs. Remember those days?
Dedeker: I don't. Too long ago. No one remembers those days. No one alive remembers
those days, guys.
Jase: Well, yes because that used to be a thing of after a breakup, it's do you destroy all those photos and letters and things or do you keep them? Do you keep them out or do you put them all away in a box and keep them? If you are keeping them, why are you keeping them? Is it because you think you might get back together and then you want to still have those things or?
Emily: Now that shits just up on the cloud.
Jase: Right. I was thinking about this recently because you'll have things where-- I know this has happened to me where I'll have a breakup and then maybe six months later on my Google calendar will be like a reminder about our anniversary that I had set up a year before.
Dedeker: Then I ended up seeing that because of with each other. Six months later I'm like, "What is going on?"
Jase: Why is this on here?
Emily: accident.
Jase: I feel like it's the digital equivalent of that stumbling upon a physical copy of a photo of us together. I think similarly looking even through our own social media and seeing pictures of us with an ex or something can be whether it's this awful hurtful thing to see or not, it's still sometimes surprising. I know for me it's like, "I didn't necessarily want to think about that right now and process that right now because I'm in the middle of something else."
I'm trying to schedule some meetings coming up and then on my Google calendar there's this thing that I had put there months ago. Shoot, I wish I hadn't been distracted by that. Which I can understand that thing people would do in the past of, I had a breakup. I'm going to take everything in my apartment or everything in my house that reminds me of that person and I'm going to either give it all away or sell it or box it all away and have it so it's not--
Dedeker: I'm selling these box of crumpled love notes that I've cried upon?
Emily: Exactly. Oh my gosh. Please, somebody, take it.
Jase: I think it's harder to do that digitally just because there's so much stuff and that you can't as easily look around your digital room and go, "Okay. This thing, this thing, this thing, I'll put them all away." I think there's also that.
Emily: I still have on these emails from this ex that I had this very tumultuous up and down relationship with. I have a bunch of emails from him that we sent to each other one summer. They're very like well-written, beautiful emails that he sent me. It is a little weird. I just still have that like a tab on my Gmail and it's like, "Do you get rid of those or?" I don't know.
Dedeker: That happens to me often if I'm searching through my inbox trying find some piece of information, some logins, some address somewhere that these unexpected emails from six years ago, seven years ago will come up. It is very similar to the calendar thing of like, "Oh geez." Because the great thing about having all our media be so digital is like doesn't take up any physical space. Don't even have to think about it but it also really doesn't keep you motivated to get rid of some of that stuff or free up that space. I do feel mixed about it.
I will say I have the same questions of do I just delete this? It's not taking up any space. I don't really run across it. Is it going to make me chuckle in 15 years' time? Is this-- I don't know.
Emily: That's interesting. Back to Tara C. Marshall. One of her studies found that people with an anxious attachment style and we've talked about attachment styles and attachment theory a little bit on the show. Remember anxious attachment style. One way to look at it is that those people who have an anxious attachment style might be more prone to things like low self-esteem, fear of rejection, potentially greater jealousy in relationships. That those people are also more likely to Facebook stalked current and ex-partners.
Jase: Interesting that's current and ex-partners. I think it's worth noting.
Dedeker: I just want to drop in. I don't want this to come across as any kind of judgy pronouncement on people with anxious attachment styles. It makes sense. It makes sense. If you're more anxiously attached and there's this huge attachment rupture of a breakup or even just the attachment rupture of my partner is on a business trip for a month or even we normally spend every day together and they're gone over the weekend. That's an attachment rupture and it totally makes sense that if you're more anxiously attached, you'd be more likely to try to resolve that attachment rupture by trying to attach in whatever way possible.
Whether that is, "I just feel more attached to you, even if I'm just looking at your social media, even if you're not physically there." I don't want this to come across as, "These weird anxious attached people. They're the weird Facebook stalkers. It's just like, "No, it makes sense."
Emily: We all have an anxious attachment at some point in our relationships and in our lives for sure.
Jase: I would almost argue it's more a way to clue into should I be more aware that right now because I'm feeling more of these things or maybe I know that I am a more anxiously attached person? That I should just be extra wary and take a little extra care of myself in this department and we'll get to some ways to do that later on. Rather than a way of judging other people for their behavior, it's more of a flag or a clue for yourself to go, "Yes, I should pay some extra attention to this because I know I might be more likely to do it."
Dedeker: Now there is another study that is in the journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Did you know the cyberpsychology is a thing?
Emily: I'm sorry, but looking at that word because it has a P in it. I know that there's a P in psychology but it's like cyber .
Dedeker: Cyberpsychology.
Emily: Just take a look at it, everyone.
Dedeker: This study in the journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking found that those who Facebook stalked their exes are six times more likely to pursue some form of unwanted intimacy with the ex-partner. Could be really problematic things like following them, approaching them when they don't want to be approached, sending letters to them, leaving gifts for them, things like that. These are behaviors that in turn are very easily to cause anxiety and negative feelings within the ex-partner who's on the receiving end of those things. I've definitely been on the receiving end of that and it is very anxiety and negative feeling producing. I will say, I don't know about all y'all.
Emily: Interesting.
Jase: Definitely. Years ago, got a call from an ex a while after we'd broken up maybe a month or a few weeks. Not super long after but questioning me about things that she had read on my new partner's social media .
Dedeker: That is gutsy.
Jase: Right. Totally. Totally.
Emily: You're like, "I don't know." I'm not my partner's keeper.
Jase: Definitely an uncomfortable situation.
Dedeker: I just want to gossip.
Emily: Do it, do it, do it.
Jase: No, it's okay. We're not going to gossip on this show because we have more studies to talk about.
Dedeker: Can we gossip in the bonus content.
Jase: Maybe we'll gossip in the bonus content.
Emily: To learn this information you have to pay us. No, kidding. Kidding. All right.
Jase: Another study that we want to talk about is also in the journal of cyberpsychology and behavior that posited that because people tend to just post positive things on social media that Facebook may expose an individual to potentially jealousy provoking information about their partner or ex-partner I guess. Which creates a feedback loop where extra jealousy leads to feeling like you need to do more surveillance of them through Facebook. Which leads to more jealousy, which leads to more surveillance and getting caught in that cycle.
Dedeker: I imagine not just straight up jealousy also may be feelings of FOMO or envy or resentment.
Emily: I've looked at my like current partners, old pictures on Facebook. Now that's an interesting rabbit hole because it's like telling yourself stories of, "They look like they had so much fun back then. They must've had more fun with that person than they are with me."
Jase: Right. We talked about social media just in general. Maybe a year or two ago about studies basically showing that spending more time on social media, looking at other people's stuff tends to make people feel less good about themselves, tends to make- their self-esteem go down. It's partly because of that. We talked about some people go the opposite route and just post all of the terrible stuff going on their social media. It seems like the prevailing way to do it is to post this perfect looking only the best parts of my life for public consumption. That can be hard to then look at everyone else and think, "That must be what their real life is like. Now I feel bad about my own."
Emily: Of course. At this point, we don't really know if social media itself is the thing that produces and encourages all of this behavior or if it's really just a tool that happens to exacerbate this preexisting psychological tendency that some of us may have, or many of us honestly may have. We do know that this current research seems to support that checking in on an ex's social media is not healthy for our growth, it's not helpful for getting over a relationship. Those are things to think about if you do find yourself doing this often which I know I absolutely have in the past.
It is important just to check yourself on that because it can lead to a lack of growth in the situation and also a lack of maybe moving on from the situation which is healthy to do.
Dedeker: Something that can be helpful. A lot of these resources that I was looking at talk about how-- many of these behaviors are things that 20 years ago would just be really odd. You wouldn't break into your ex's house to go through their new photos with their new girlfriend or whatever or maybe you would. Maybe you would be that person, I don't know. That is the question 20 or 30 years ago, would you already be the person who maybe was like, "Oh, I'm going to maybe drive past my ex's workplace just to see if I can see them and see how they look. I'm not going to go and-"
Emily: Or asking.
Dedeker: Yes, or maybe asking mutual friends. Maybe you would already be that person and even without social media that's steal stuff that you'd be taking steps toward doing. Or maybe social media is the thing where it's I wouldn't be that person who drives by my ex's workplace but I can go to their social media and just really quickly look at their Instagram and see what's going on. Yes, I don't know.
Jase: Yes. I would argue that it is. I think that social media makes it so easy. It's almost like, maybe I wouldn't be someone who would go into someone's house or go into a store and steal stuff but if everyone was leaving all of their stuff right on their front lawn maybe there'd be more temptation to go, "Oh, that's a nice thing let me just grab that." It's like that. It's like here it is it's all right there. That temptation if you're ever having a moment of weakness or of temptation there is nothing stopping you.
Dedeker: In this strange world that Jase concocted where everyone leaves the most prized possessions on their front lawn so we go around twiddling boxes full of moldy love letters and photos or stuff of the ex-partners.
Emily: That's hysterical.
Jase: Yes, stay tuned for my post-apocalyptic fiction books to come out-
Dedeker: Okay. If we know in our hearts and we know according to research in science that obsessively checking in on someone's social media is not good for our growth and not healthy for us why is it so addictive. Why do we do it? Why?
Jase: Why do you think?
Emily: Yes, why do you? I mean why we talked about all those things.
Dedeker: We'll get more into the specifics. Yes, I think that feedback loop is a key part of this that I think there is a little bit of it that does feel good, that most of it often feels bad but I think a little bit of it does feel good and that's what keeps us coming back. I think that there is many, many, many reasons why it's easy for it to become addictive or to become compulsive especially to the point where it becomes a habit or an addiction. We still do this thing that we know is not good for us.
I want to make a call back to Episode 239 not too long ago, that was about guilt in relationships. Specifically, we talked about this in the bonus episode that there was this study from Northwestern University and it found that our brains super easily make a link between guilt and pleasure which often leads us to actually seek out situations that we know are going to make us feel guilty because they also make us feel pleasure. Sometimes when we know we're going to feel guilty, it actually enhances our experience of pleasure.
In this study, they found this just with food with giving people chocolate and priming them to be more likely to feel guilt or less likely to feel guilt. They found that the people who are primed to feel guilt ahead of time really enjoyed that chocolate a lot more and wanted to pay for it a lot more. I think there's that. I think we know that we probably shouldn't be looking at our ex's social media. I think that's part of our cultural zeitgeist and there's maybe some guilt around it but we have that guilty-pleasure association and I think that is part of the glue that keeps us coming back.
Jase: Yes. What is that pleasure that we're getting? There is a number of different pleasure that we could be getting from looking at an ex's social media. The first one is a wonderful word, "Schadenfreude," which is-
Dedeker: Schadenfreude.
Jase: -also called the shadow self--
Dedeker: It's a German word.
Jase: -the shadow self for the shadow friend or whatever. Getting pleasure from seeing someone else fail look bad or experiencing pain. It's looking attracts the social media to look for them to break up with their new partner or to look--
Dedeker: To look for them to look they've let themselves go.
Jase: Right or something.
Emily: Terrible.
Jase: Next one is downward social comparison. Just making ourselves feel good by looking down on others. That could be for whatever reason we decide is worth looking down on someone for. Looking down on them for whatever. Their clothing choices or their hairstyles or the things they post about or their grammar-
Dedeker: Their job.
Jase: -in their posting. It's really whatever you want to look down on them for that you feel superior could be a way of getting that short-lived socialist steam boost through that downward social comparison. Or on a different note, if you're sad and missing this person that seeing their social media it's-- we've talked about this before with the importance of long-distance relationships sending selfies is that actually seeing that person's face gets you that little bit of dopamine hit. If it's someone that you're attracted to and someone that you love that kind of, "Oh, wow. Oh, I feel good."
In the case where we're still attracted to her ex, we see that we get that little bit of dopamine hit because our body doesn't know that we're broken up. It's just our brain knows that. One researcher called this, "The emotional candy cane." It lasts for a moment. I know it's cute I think-
Dedeker: A candy cane lasts longer than a moment. You have to suck it for a while.
Dedeker: Well, I was thinking one of those tiny candy canes. Either way you could suck on it and look it till becomes a sharp point and then it pokes you in the tongue and you start bleeding.
Jase: -a better metaphor I like that.
Emily: Gracious.
Dedeker:
Emily: How many candy canes are you poking your tongue with-
Jase:
Dedeker: I've not poked to my own tongue with a candy cane and in many an age probably since I was 10. I poked myself with an emotional candy cane much more-
Emily: Of course.
Jase: Of course. Just that. I think this researcher is referring to it more as the sugar rush, the dopamine hit you get from having sugar and then just a little bit later, you're miserable again and you need some more. It's that I haven't found some other way to replace this or I haven't just gone through the recovery from this thing in terms of looking at an ex and social media and so I'm just going to keep getting these little hits when I can by looking at it even though it actually upsets me.
Emily: I would like to quote Phantogram, my favorite band from a song called, "You Don't Get Me High Anymore." She says, "You used to take one now it takes four you don't get me high anymore. I don't know she reminded me of that. All these little hits that you need.
Jase: Yes, totally.
Emily: All right. You may also feel left out of the loop FOMO again talks about that in a earlier episode, a couple I don't know dozen back or so.
Emily: Who knows we've done a lot of this. You might be desperately seeking information like are they dating someone new, have they moved on from me already, what were their reasons for ending the relationship, can I see a little bit more of that based on their social media or even is this new metamour that I have with this person of threat. "Are they going to try to replace me? Do they want to be monogamous and I'm deeply into polyamory et cetera?"
Dedeker: Well, I think this feels
Emily: Yes, that's an interesting one.
Dedeker: This feels very similar to me too, gosh, what we talked about ages ago with the episode on snooping that snooping- those behaviors can come from a desire to seek information and to have questions.
Emily: Absolutely.
Dedeker: If you're broken up with your ex and there is no way for you to straight up ask these questions either because they're physically not there and you can't contact them or because it's embarrassing to straight up ask them, "Are you dating someone new? Have you moved on? Can you tell me why you actually entered the relationship that--"
Jase: Or you don't believe they'll be honest.
Dedeker: That too, if you feel you got a sleuth your way, a detective your way to figuring out what's actually going on that social media can offer this outlet. I think that very rarely actually produces information for you but for some reason, we think that it may.
Jase: Right. Which I think maybe can more often lead to just giving us more fuel to come up with our own stories rather than actually finding the truth which is what we might tell ourselves that we're trying to do.
Emily: Yes, totally. We do that with our metamours as well. Just in general, I mean a lot of people find the possibility of their metamorphic to be this great amazing person that might end up taking my partner away or my partner might end up being more interested in them simply because they look sexy or pretty or whatever smarter, better job, et cetera, et cetera. The stories that we make up in our minds are huge here as well.
We can be led by what's known in psychology as Approached Motivation. If we're feeling anger or frustration or even hatred, we might be motivated to approach and try to seek out a positive outcome through confrontation and resolution. Again, even if it's just like an approach in terms of approaching your ex's social media, you might be upset or angry. I definitely felt this one and wanting like some sort of, again, catharsis, in whatever form it is. Maybe the only form that we can do is to look at what's happening with our ex through social media. You're again going through that approach motivation.
If we simply don't like someone, if we're not interested in them, then we might be more often influenced by avoidance motivation.
Jase: Not just even bother.
Emily: That's more of an difference. Exactly, rather than a really true like anger, hatred or, "Why did you do this to me? I have to find out somehow."
Dedeker: This is some explanation that some researchers have given for the phenomenon of hate following someone or keeping up on social media, maybe with a public figure who's opinions you--
Emily: Even like the trolls out there.
Dedeker: Even keeping up with the trolls or-- Oh, gosh. Honestly, there's this group on Facebook that I used to be a part of that was all really horrible, stereotypical, unicorn hunters posting to try to find unicorns. Just like all the typical awful BS that you see, like the worst of the worst. I would still follow it and look at it and want it to come up in my newsfeed. I think because of this approach motivation thing.
This motivation to be like, "I want to somehow confront these people and I want to resolve it. I want to make it right. I want them to see how wrong they are." As opposed to if it was a little bit less emotionally charged for me. If it was like,"Whatever, people do what they are going to do. I feel pretty neutral, pretty ambivalent about it that I wouldn't be motivated to be in this group and be looking at this stuff." I did eventually have to put some boundaries on myself and take it out of my newsfeed because I found it just makes me too angry.
Jase: Right.
Emily: That's a good way of doing just like take it-- there's like a thing on Facebook where you can just like take it out of your feeds, hide it.
Jase: Like hide posts like these, or don't show me these.
Dedeker: Unfollow. Either, don't show me these, or can be like unfollow or whatever it is.
Emily: You're going to have to totally get out of the group.
Jase: I think there's even features, I think now for unfollowing- not unfollowing, but, "Don't show me these posts for a period of time." I think you can even set a timer now which--
Dedeker: Facebook, specifically set up tools for you to be able to avoid your ex and mentions of your ex in your feed. It'll be specifically, not only will be not show stuff from your ex, but we also won't show stuff from mutual friends, I may have tagged your ex, it's been photos.
Jase: You have to turn those things on and tell it because you know.
Dedeker: Which is often where people go wrong in the first place.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: It's like, "Do I really want to do this?"
Jase: It reminds me a little bit of something that was first introduced to me in Shakespeare class in school, which was this idea that love and hate are more similar to each other. I think this is kind of saying dislike, I just don't want to be around, I don't want to see it at all. Hate is a little bit like love and that it can lead to obsession toward that thing. Constant wanting to engage with that thing. I mean, there it is.
Dedeker: Then next thing you know, you're murdering a fellow and just what happened.
Jase: Exactly.
Emily: Or rather like a fellow is murdering, does the mono.
Jase: Is murdering his wife.
Dedeker: All right. Okay. That was what? Sorry.
Jase: Spoiler alert to those of you who haven't read our fellow.
Emily: If you don't know that.
Jase: We've talked about why stalking an ex on social media might not be healthy for us. We've talked about why it's so addictive, why it's so tempting to do. Let's talk about what are some counterspells? What are some things that we can do? Kind of like those tools on Facebook, but what are some things that we can do to take care of ourselves? Especially if we've identified, Yes, I am one of these people who has that tendency, whether it's because I'm anxiously attached or because I'm a Pisces, or whatever it is.
Emily: Excuse you. I'm a cusp, okay.
Jase: Whatever it is you've identified. What do I do?
Dedeker: Hey, if it looks like a Pisces, it acts like a Pisces, walks like a Pisces.
Emily: Are you saying I'm a fish?
Dedeker: Then it's a fish. Counterspells, first counterspell is the counterspell of compassion.
Emily: Your spell.
Dedeker: For all this research, it can definitely come across like we were saying earlier as judgy or you're so terrible, and you're so obsessed, and you're going to stalk your ex and it's terrible. This is really normal in this day and age, it's a good thing that we are starting to get more research. The cool thing is that because social media is so new, all of the research that we're telling you about has been conducted in the last 10 years or so.
Clearly, it's happening because it happens so frequently, it's so normal, it's normal to still care about an ex, it's normal to still be interested in an ex or in someone else.
It's normal to care about what's going on in your partner's life and to be interested in it. It's normal to be interested in the new person that you ex is dating or that your current partner is dating or whatever it is.
Having compassion and being aware of when you're unnecessarily beating yourself up over it because we can really quickly go to this place of being ashamed that we weren't able to just let it go right away. That we were able to break up and then two days later, I'm totally fine. I don't think about them, I don't have any sad feelings, I'm back to my normal life and it's all great.
It's okay. These things take time and if going back to your ex in social media is part of that letting go process, it's like, yes. That's normal, that's totally normal and understandable.
Moving on to the next counterspell is to identify what triggers you going down the rabbit hole of someone's social media. Have an awareness of, is it when you're feeling particularly depressed or anxious? Is it when you're stressed? Is it when you're feeling lonely? Is it when you haven't got enough sleep? Is it when you're hungry?
Emily: You need to grit on yourself.
Dedeker: Is it when you need a halt? Yes. Is it when you wake up in the middle of the night at 2:00 AM? Is it when you see a post from mutual friend or from an ex's family member and that reminds you, "I haven't thought about this person in a week but now I'm thinking of them because I am still friends with their step mum. I forgot to unfriend their step mum and now I'm down the rabbit hole of clicking through and seeing what's up with them. Just get curious and figure out what are the things that happen leading up to me suddenly finding myself having spent a half-hour creeping through my ex's social media. For me, it tends to be boredom. Actually.
Jase: I was just going to say, it's like filling that in-between time.
Emily: It's more likely to be boredom or if I'm in between tasks, and I'm putting off moving on to my next task. That's what I tend to be on social media in general, it tends to fill up that in-between time, and that's when I'm more likely to click through and try to see what an ex is up to.
Jase: For me, it's that time I'm about to start work, I'm getting myself ready to start working. I'm on my computer and it's like, well, I'm not quite ready to actually start working. That's when the temptation is, let me go check all my email accounts, and then from there I'll end up on some social media or looking at stuff like that. That's a time for me that I'm better about it sometimes than others.
If I'm being on top of it, then I know this is going to happen so let me actually first before I go up to the computer, let me make a plan about what I'm going to do once I sit in front of it. Even just taking that moment to go, "Why am I here? I'm going to pull up this program and start doing this thing first." Maybe, check my to-do list on the app on my phone instead of on my desktop, or vice versa, if one tends to be more tempting to get pulled away to social media than the other.
Moving on to the next one. This is to stop storytelling. This is hard because humans love stories. This is the stories that you tell about your ex, or matter more, or whoever it is, and the stories that you tell about yourself. Trying to string everything together into some sort of narrative and giving meaning to everything. That's a trap that as humans fall into is we try to attribute meaning to more things that actually have meaning.
Emily: They're better off without me. They're happier with this person.
Jase: Or this always happen to me.
Emily: I might not be a good partner, I'm the common denominator, et cetera.
Jase: I know this one's hard and if maybe just saying, "Stop doing it," doesn't seem possible. Actually, I would challenge you to just say, what if that was possible? What if you were able to say, you know what, every time I notice I'm doing that I'm just going to stop and maybe just make it that simple. Don't beat yourself up when you do it, but every time you noticed you're doing it just stop. Maybe that in itself could help you.
Dedeker: I was looking at social media in general, not even an ex's social media that anytime I can catch myself going down this rabbit hole of telling myself this story of I'm not good enough, I'm not doing enough, I'm not successful enough because I tend to go in that direction. That if I catch myself, I found the most compassionate way that I can treat myself is just to be like, "Wow, that was an interesting story. Let's move on with the day."
Emily: That's good.
Dedeker: Like, "Wow, good job." The end.
Emily: Insane.
Jase: Going along with that is this next one, which is to disrupt the behavior. I think there's two different ways to do this. One is to disrupt the behavior by putting something in place to stop you from doing it. The other is disrupting the behavior of when you notice you're doing it, quickly diverting to something else. We're going to talk about both of those. The thing though that you could divert your attention to could be watching TV.
It could be playing a video game or doing a crossword puzzle or Sudoku. If you don't like those number based ones. There's a game called, I Love Hue. Like H-U-E that's all color-- Sudoku color game, but it's a puzzle game but it's just colors and you're trying to line up colors and gradients and stuff like that. It's just a nice, addictive little app. Maybe if that gets you addicted, maybe that's not a great thing.
If it is something that interests you enough and occupies your brain enough, just to disrupt that cycle long enough, that might be enough to get you out of it. Ways to do this, we talked about before is just if you can get better at noticing it, or I know that I tend to do it at this time. I tend to do it when I'm in the bathroom, or I tend to do it right when I wake up. When I go to the bathroom, don't bring my phone with me, or when I wake up in the morning, don't turn on my phone right away.
Turn off, do not disturb or however you have your phone set, do something like that to disrupt it, or there's actually apps and things that can help you do that. There's one called AppDetox. There's also Chrome extensions that can block or redirect certain websites. You try to go to Facebook and instead it brings you to tiny Buddha's quote of the day, or something else like that.
Emily: That's a carrot.
Jase: You can set it up to do it just during certain times of day. Things like that.
Dedeker: Honestly, you can set up for someone's specific social media as well.
Jase: It's just going to their profile.
Dedeker: You're not completely blocking yourself and looking at social media; although, trying not as cool to. Where you can just get redirected from a specific person social media to either the homepage of the social media or I've done the tiny Buddha one before just or maybe a new site or a blog or whatever that you're going to start reading. Something like that just to be three steps ahead of yourself essentially.
Jase: Something that helps me a lot is actually learning-based sites. For me, it's with apps. It's like if I'm having that moment where I'm bored and I'm on my phone or I have my phone with me, I'm waiting for a train or a bus or something that instead of pulling up social media, instead of pulling up Twitter or Instagram or Facebook or whatever, I might do that but then go, "Yes. No, I don't want to do that because that's not productive." I'm going to instead pull up solo learn, or my language flashcards, or some little short snippets of coding, computer programming lessons or-
Emily: It's all very impressive.
Jase: It's just that. It's like finding whatever engages your brain enough that you'll be interested enough to do it and not just flip back over to the social media thing.
Emily: Bring your Kindle with you everywhere.
Jase: Yes, that's a good thing too.
Emily: You also have Kindle on your phone. I know I do.
Jase: I've even done that sometimes where I had a moment where I was just like, "I need something." I downloaded the Kindle app onto my phone so that I could pull up one of my old books just because I needed something healthy to do with my brain.
Emily: Be bored.
Dedeker: Thank you, Emily. I was going to do a call back to our Collin show of like, or let yourself sit on the train for five minutes and stare at a screen.
Emily: Remember when we went on our retreat and it was fine being bored?
Dedeker: It was fine not having any technology for six days or however long.
Emily: It was great actually.
Emily: I know. Let's do it again. Let's go right now.
Emily: I love those turkeys.
Jase: I love that. Every time you check yourself, looking at your ex's social media, go on a five-day silent meditation routine.
Dedeker: Go move into a box.
Emily: Perfect. You will be there forever.
Dedeker: It will get you over it real quick. It'll be an extreme detox.
Emily: Along those lines, social media detox is very helpful. Either you can do that extreme measure of totally getting rid of social media accounts. I know some people who don't have Facebook on their phone anymore. Like the app for example, if they want to get to it then they have to go to the web browser which just like adds that extra more challenging step of going on there, or you could take like a weekend detox, even a one day detox. Setting limits on your Facebook timer or Chrome or any of those other ways. Those are all very helpful.
Dedeker: Facebook, specifically you have to dig for it in Facebook settings at least--
Emily: I've never seen that. I'm surprised that that's a thing.
Dedeker: In the mobile app, yes, because I stumbled across it totally by accident. You do have to dig for it that Facebook has a timer feature, where you can say set a timer for-- limit me to 20 minutes of Facebook a day essentially. Now it could be more perfect because essentially what happens is that after you've been on Facebook for 20 minutes, it pops up, this big old window pops up and says, "Hey, you've been on Facebook for 20 minutes."
It's very easy to just click away that window and keep going. It's relying on you to have the self-control but it is still something. I did find that when I still had the Facebook app installed, it was still helpful to at least have something to just remind me like-
Dedeker: It's shaming you.
Emily: "Gosh, 20 minutes. My goodness." You can set it to whatever.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly. Also, get your thoughts and your feelings outside of yourself. I love this one. Write it down. Talk with therapist. Post in our patron group. Get permission to rant a friend's ear off. Whatever helps. Just try to not internalize some things so much because really getting outside yourself in my opinion, is very, very helpful. Just anytime that I'm really trying to work through something, I tend to like in my head, be angry about something or be upset, then once I get it out, it's like, "I don't need to be upset about this anymore. I can move on."
Jase: I've had the experience of being really mad at someone. Actually had this experience with you Dedeker, like a year and a half ago.
Dedeker: Oh, no.
Jase: I was really mad at you about something. I don't even remember what it was.
Emily: She put the dishwasher in this entire--
Jase: No, it was something, I don't remember what it was but I wrote down in my journal that night. I wrote a bunch. I wrote like several paragraphs because I wanted to remember so that when we talked about it later, I would remember all the things that I wanted to say to you that I was mad about and ended up then talking about the next day and didn't really need to talk about those things and wasn't mad. I actually looked at it, it came up, again, like this random running into things in your social media a month or two ago.
This is why this is on my mind, is I ran into this in my notes. I put it in a Google keep note. It wasn't in my normal journal. It was there and I ran into it and I was like, "What's this?" I looked at it again and reading through it I was like, "That's silly. I was so mad about all that." If I had just let that all stay spinning around in my head, maybe I would have been more mad that next day. It's getting it out there, even though my intention wasn't to get it out so that I wouldn't be angry. It was so that I would remember what I was angry about.
Dedeker: You wouldn't let me get away with it--
Emily: How justified you're wearing your anger. Look at this.
Jase: That it still had the effect of getting it out of me and allowing me to get to sleep which was also part of why I was doing it. Then also I wasn't as angry after that. I still was that night but the next day or two days later, I wasn't.
Emily: You're like, "Whatever." Finally, with all of this fill the space between your ears. I like how you wrote that Dedeker. That's pretty cute. Just put good things. Things that make you feel good into your head. I hope that those things may help you prevent sliding back into behaviors that make you feel bad. it doesn't really like mean that you're just going to be positive all the time, obviously. Everyone's mental space and mental health is different. If you can do gratitude type things, even reading positive fiction, watching animal videos. What is this favorite thing of yours?
Dedeker: I found for me to prevent myself from going down the rabbit hole of watching super upsetting news all the time-
Emily: The news has been upsetting to me recently.
Dedeker: Well anyway, my go-to, to fill that space is Pingu videos. Which is a--
Jase: Tell us about Pingu real quick.
Dedeker: It's a children's show about a penguin. It's a Claymation. It's one of those great children's shows where there's no dialogue whatsoever. It's just noises. It's just like, "Whoa, dah, dah, dah." "No, no, no." It's super accessible and not very annoying and there's hours and hours and hours long compilations on YouTube. That tends to be my go-to. That's a really good candidate for if you want to set up an extension redirect away from your ex's social media. Redirect to a Pingu video, and just scrub through. Each episode is two minutes, three minutes or whatever, and they're all very positive and innocent and cute.
Emily: Was it the one, he was cold and didn't want to get out of the bed?
Dedeker: No. That was a different penguin video.
Jase: Clearly penguin videos are a theme with Dedeker.
Emily: I'm like, "Geez. Okay."
Dedeker: I think something about that of this is a pretty good general piece of advice for helping to prevent you from slipping into addictive behaviors or obsessive behaviors or self-harming behaviors that if you can fill yourself with things that are positive or neutral, it could help. We've talked about this a lot that something that helps prevent just sliding into the mindless social media scroll is learning something, doing flashcards, reading a blog I'm super interested in. As simple as that. It doesn't have to be the whole sweetness and light of just to be positive and manifest things. It's just literally something that's not negative and not encouraging you to slip back into that space.
Emily: Honestly, I think podcasts are really great too. I've gotten really into podcasts this year in a way that I never have before, which is astounding considering I'm on two. I never really was into it, and now I'm super into podcast. I just drove to Tucson and back, and that's an eight-hour drive each way.
Jase: That's a lot of podcasts.
Emily: Yes. Amazing episodes of This American Life and the Daily and a bunch of other stuff, the Law Fair Podcast. I was listening to law stuff. It was fascinating and it does help you to learn things too that you might not have known before, so it's fantastic.
Dedeker: It's like the dieting thing that you got to make sure that you're feeding yourself and you're not letting yourself starve because that's when you're going to be more likely to turn to junk food and sugary things and things that are not so good for you. I see it that way that if you're keeping yourself occupied with more nutritive things, then you won't go for that.
Emily: Is that a word?
Dedeker: It is now. You won't go for that super pokey emotional candy cane.
Jase: If you give yourself I think specifically something for your mind to chew on.
Emily: Ruminate on.
Jase: Ruminate on or chew on or however you want to think about it, as opposed to just something mindless because then we'll end up looking for something to chew on. Maybe that's gossip or maybe that's something about ex, or something to compare ourselves to, and instead give yourself a healthier snack for your brain to chew on.
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: Speaking of gossip though, Jase, you promised us.
Jase: I definitely did not promise.
Emily: I don't know about promise.
Dedeker: We would talk about your ex.
Jase: Well, we might talk about some personal stories in the bonus.
Dedeker: Let's talk about some personal stories in the bonus episode, so if you want to take part in that, then you can join our Patreon. We want to hear from all of you. Do you check your ex's social media? Have you found yourself obsessively checking or creeping on anyone's social media whether it's your ex from 10 years ago, or your matter more, or your current partner or things like that? Has it become a problem for you? Do you find that it's okay for you? It doesn't become something that's a habit or that's addictive? Have you found certain ways to get yourself to stop?