A recent research study published in the peer-reviewed journal CyberPsychology & Behavior, found that Facebook usage may trigger romantic jealousy for its users. This is how it happens: users get snagged by a flirty wall comment or an ambiguous photo, and as a result they become suspicious and start monitoring their partner's pages, only to end up finding even more ambiguous information that reinforces their suspicion and jealousy. If this hasn’t happened to you, it’s certainly happened to someone you know.

In this study, 308 undergraduate students completed an online survey that assessed demographic and personality factors and explored their Facebook use. The researchers want to explore the role of Facebook in the experience of jealousy and to determine if increased Facebook exposure predicts jealousy above and beyond personal and relationship factors. At the time of the survey, the majority of the participants were in a relationship in which they were seriously dating one person (50.5%), and less than 4% of participants were casually dating one or more partners or in an open relationship.

The researchers found that a social network feedback loop occurs whereby using Facebook exposes people to ambiguous information about their partner that they may not otherwise have access to and that this new information incites further Facebook use, that flares into romantic jealousy.