Social media provides a useful platform for people to share information, develop networks, and connect with each other online. While social media allows one to foster relationships with ease, it may pose challenges for individuals in a romantic relationship. Mounting evidence suggests that social media use may have an adverse impact on relationship dynamics, largely due to reduced time and attention for relationship partners. However, it remains unclear (1) how the increased use of social media may lead to negative consequences of relationship quality; (2) how the increased use of social media and negative relationship consequences together may trigger social media addiction; and (3) whether there are psychological factors that may contribute to the mitigation of the negative consequences. Here, we explored these issues by selecting Instagram (IG) as the target platform because the unique feature of tracking objective time of usage within the IG app allowed us to more accurately determine the length of IG usage. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we found that increased IG usage reduced relationship satisfaction, which led to an increase in both conflicts and negative outcomes. The sequential effects of reduced relationship satisfaction and increased conflicts then triggered addictive use of IG. In contrast, tendency to make sacrifice for the relationship partner in everyday life produced a positive effect on relationship satisfaction, which in turn reduced the likelihood of conflicts, negative outcomes, and addiction. Taken together, we have delineated pathways through which excessive social media use may detrimentally affect both relationship and personal well-being and identified sacrifice as a possible psychological factor to mitigate the detrimental effects. We believe that these findings add to our understanding of the processes by which social media influences romantic relationship and highlight the interactive effects of social media and relationship on causing unexpected, adverse consequences.

社交媒体为人们提供了一个有用的平台，可以让人们共享信息、发展网络以及在线相互联系。虽然社交媒体可以让人们轻松地建立关系，但它可能会给处于恋爱关系中的个人带来挑战。越来越多的证据表明，社交媒体的使用可能会对关系动态产生不利影响，这主要是由于减少了对关系伙伴的时间和注意力。然而，目前尚不清楚（1）社交媒体使用的增加如何导致关系质量的负面影响；(2) 社交媒体使用的增加和负面关系后果如何共同引发社交媒体成瘾；(3) 是否存在可能有助于减轻负面后果的心理因素。这里，客观的IG 应用程序中的使用时间使我们能够更准确地确定 IG 的使用时长。使用结构方程建模方法，我们发现增加 IG 使用会降低关系满意度，从而导致冲突和负面结果的增加。关系满意度降低和冲突增加的连续影响随后引发了对 IG 的成瘾使用。相比之下，在日常生活中为伴侣做出牺牲的倾向对关系满意度产生了积极影响，从而减少了冲突、负面结果和成瘾的可能性。综合起来，我们已经描绘了过度使用社交媒体可能对人际关系和个人福祉产生不利影响的途径，并将牺牲确定为减轻不利影响的可能心理因素。我们相信，这些发现增加了我们对社交媒体影响浪漫关系过程的理解，并突出了社交媒体和关系对导致意外、不利后果的互动影响。