Rabbit-Holing Responsible for Some Divorces

“We really expect our romantic partners to have this shared reality — a similar view or understanding of the world to ours,” Van Duyn said. “It is much more important in romantic relationships than in other types of relationships because we are more dependent and interwoven in our day-to-day lives with our partners. Scholars have found that this shared sense of reality is really important for the success and happiness of romantic partnerships because it fosters closeness.”

Partners’ rabbit-holing behaviors on digital media — fixatedly diving into obscure topics, particularly extreme or false political information — and absorption in prominent conspiracy theories and groups ignited relational tension. This friction eroded some couples’ mutual views of reality, particularly when one partner questioned the validity of the information, media or communities that the other person was enmeshed with, Van Duyn said.

“This kind of rabbit-holing behavior is often associated with online conspiracy groups or content because it drives people to persistently dig further into similar topics or theories,” Van Duyn said. “There’s some evidence that platforms — and social media platforms in particular — are feeding this behavior because their algorithms are recommending things or queuing up videos to play next that entice viewers to continue their engagement with the information for extended periods.”

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Close relationships tend to be where people are likely to be exposed to and believe corrections to false information, research has found. “By allowing and algorithmically reinforcing misinformation/ disinformation and conspiracy content online, platforms not only encourage the radicalization of individual users,” they diminish the likelihood of these individuals being exposed to differing information by the people closest to them and possibly questioning their beliefs, Van Duyn said.

As some former partners built identities around the falsehoods disseminated by conspiracy groups or when others embraced information from media sources that those in the study believed were untrustworthy, the individuals in the study were forced to choose between validating what they viewed as the truth or validating their partners.