Is Facebook Making Breakups Harder?

Breakups aren’t what they used to be–some angry words, a few tears (or lots), and perhaps a slammed door or last embrace depending on your individual style.  We seek solace and comfort in our friends and family and grieve over the loss of a relationship.  The process of bereavement may be not too dissimilar to that of losing a loved one as we cope with the passing of a relationship.  Returning back to or discovering “normal” can be complicated.  For some, it’s a time to return to a life not unlike what was familiar and functional before the start of this most recent relationship, and for others (especially in longer term commitments), it may be a time of exploring and redefining an entirely new way of life–a way that works in the absence of an ex.  Those familiar five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) may play through in part or in entirety over time, and eventually we begin to move on.  From days to months to years, the time it takes to get over a relationship is different for everyone.  But we do it in our own time.  Modern technology and social media, however, may be redefining what "in our own time" looks like.  And is this making breakups harder?

Researchers at Bruneel University in England, studied 464 undergraduates and how they utilized Facebook in their grief process following a breakup (Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, online Oct. 2012).  What they found was that “people who spent the most time on their ex-partner’s Facebook page had more distress, negative feelings and longing for their former flames and lower levels of personal growth (APA Monitor, December 2012).”  Apparently, that same social media magic that reconnects us to long lost friends of our past also keeps us connected (in sometimes unhealthy ways) to those friends we are trying to lose as well.  Do you "unfriend" your ex?