Silicon Roundabout

Divorced From Reality by Facebook

Chuck Ansbacher | Thursday 10 March, 2011 10:25

Anyone who has gone through a serious breakup in the age of Facebook knows how difficult the virtual waters of a relationship-status-changing-event can be to navigate. It starts with the sympathetic pokes. The questionable “likes”. The outpouring of support from people you didn’t even remember becoming friends with from that weekend in Prague.

And that’s just the beginning.

Watching an ex get his or her life back on track, start dating, post pictures of a fancy vacation, get a new puppy, find happiness, success, etc. It’s painful. The fact that these problems are pathetically first world, yet persistent, doesn’t help either. “People are starving in the world and I’m depressed because I can’t stop checking my ex’s status updates?” It’s almost enough to make you want to dust off your old Bebo account. Almost.

With Facebook entering its fifth year of availability for all, the above experience has become almost universal. Likewise, the opposite experience — of dating, flirting, pre-dating stalking, etc. — is, for better or worse, literally the way we enter relationships in 2011.

Lately a newer and sadder Facebook related relationship trend has emerged — relationships are ending because of it.

“We’re coming across it more and more. One spouse connects online with someone they knew from school. The person is emotionally available and they start communicating through Facebook,” said Dr Steven Kimmons, a clinical psychologist and marriage counsellor at Loyola University Medical Centre near Chicago.

A recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that four out of five lawyers reported an increasing number of divorce cases citing evidence derived from social networking sites in the past five years, with Facebook being the market leader.

Two-thirds of the lawyers surveyed said that Facebook was the “primary source” of evidence in divorce proceedings, while MySpace with 14% and Twitter with 5% lagged far behind.

Hahaha about that MySpace part. But otherwise, woof! Facebook divorce? Facebook divorce! Maybe it’s my own refusal to admit that Facebook is the most important thing in almost everybody’s life, but wow, can you imagine a more childish reason for divorce than Facebook?? I can. “She woudn’t stop stealing my Skittles.” That’s a more childish reason for divorce than Facebook.

The article goes on to stress that the rate of divorce has remained pretty stable in the US. So sabotaging your spouse’s Farmville isn’t actually causing more divorces than usual, phew. It’s just the newest way for people who should have never gotten married in the first place to come to that important realisation.

As a closing thought, I would like to extend a special request to all the couples out there reading this article who are getting divorced because of something that happened on Facebook. Please, when you tell your kids why you’re ending your marriage, tell them why. Tell them that something that happened on a social networking site is the reason their family is splitting in half. Great job, adults.

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