Do you check social media accounts of former partners? Beware, you may be micro-cheating

Showing a high level of digital interest in someone outside the existing relationship can constitute micro-cheating.

Micro-cheating might be ruining relationships in the modern digital age, as just a click of a computer button can be considered unfaithful by your partner, experts warn. Micro-cheating is used to describe behaviour which falls in a grey area between friendly interaction and infidelity.

Examples include checking social media accounts of former partners, sending emojis such as hearts and flowers to people other than partners, and saving mobile phone contact details of a friend of the opposite sex under a false name. This means, showing a high level of “digital” interest in someone outside the existing relationship can constitute micro-cheating, The Telegraph reported.

“It can be something as simple as repeatedly ‘liking’ someone’s posts on Instagram or commenting on someone’s Facebook,” said Martin Graff, a psychologist at the University of South Wales in the UK. Other actions that can be considered micro-cheating include frequently checking someone’s Instagram, messaging someone without your partner’s knowledge, or adding a former lover on the messaging site Snapchat.

However, critics of the term micro-cheating say that the concept encourages controlling behaviour and the surveillance of online communications.