November 12, 2013
The New Age of Jealousy
Although jealousy and envy are not perfect synonyms, they are both emotions relating to what someone else has, and they are both heavily used in place of the other. Jealousy, however, is the fear that someone will take something away from you, and envy is when you desire what someone else has. I have been taught the wrongdoings of envy because it is highlighted both as a Seven Deadly Sin and as one of the Ten Commandments. However, I have always wondered whether something beneficial could result from jealousy and if jealousy is consistent between different stages of relationships. Carrie Kennedy-Lightsey and Melanie Booth-Butterfield respond to this in their journal and decide that one form of jealousy is necessary and can create beneficial results: romantic jealousy. In their paper, Responses to Jealousy Situations That Evoke Uncertainty in Married and Dating Relationships, they present the thought that romantic jealousy brings “emotional reactions and communicative responses” in a relationship; therefore, it is necessary (Kennedy 256). From a communications standpoint, these responses can be looked to as in increase in verbal and nonverbal interaction between two people. Therefore, their correlation between this increase in communication and beneficial results makes sense if more information is relayed between the individuals. Kennedy-Lightsey and Booth-Butterfield also say that young, dating relationships generally have more incidents of romantic jealousy. This stage of a relationship holds the most uncertainty about individuals’ desires of whether continue the relationship or end it. Jennifer L. Bevan, another researcher, disagrees and states that the more committed individuals, those who have been invested in a relationship the longest, are most likely to be jealous (Bevan). A reasonable answer to why these two researchers found drastic differences in their results is that of the years the research was performed in. Due to the increasing use of social media networks, the newest numbers should be a result from the constant availability of information online. However, Kennedy-Lightsey and Booth-Butterfield’s journal is from 2011 and Bevan’s is from 2008. Therefore, the social media factor cannot explain the differences. As social networking sites are becoming more and more popular, I feel like the ages of those who are jealous and in a relationship are moving towards the crowd of the casual, young couple. The Role of Social Network Sites in Romantic Relationships: Effects on Jealousy and Relationship Happiness states that the feelings of jealousy are increased by the use and popularity of social networking sites, and in 2010 alone, there were more than 500 million users on Facebook (Utz). Sites like Facebook increase the information available