According to a study conducted by a Western University student completing her Masters’ thesis, approximately 88 percent of Facebook users that went through a relationship breakup in the last twelve months use the social network to keep an eye on their ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend. Veronika Lukacs, the student conducting the study, wanted to see how distress caused by the end of a relationship is related to Facebook use. Subjects filled out a survey answering questions about Facebook usage post break-up and Lukacs also conducted interviews with the respondents.
When asked about the results of the study which was called “It’s Complicated: Romantic Breakups and Their Aftermath on Facebook”, Lukacs stated “What I found was that whether you were on Facebook all the time or not, your distress level changed based on how much surveillance you were doing (post break-up).”
She continued ”The more surveillance there was, the more distress there was, but it’s difficult to say why. Does surveillance make you more distressed, or are you distressed so you do more surveillance? My hunch is that it’s a bit of both.“
Definitely increasing the overall creepiness factor, seventy percent of the respondents admitted to using a mutual friend’s Facebook profile to spy on their ex. This method of stalking is likely used after one member of the relationship deletes the other from their friend’s list. However, both members of the relationship are still able to see likes and comments on the profiles of mutual friends. For increased privacy, Facebook also offers the ability to block another user from their entire Facebook profile. This action will hide all Facebook interactions from each person on all mutual friend profiles and neither party will show up in Facebook search. The only caveat to this method of profile blocking is that the ex will still appear in photos with mutual friends, assuming they aren’t tagged when posted to Facebook.
Even worse than stalking from a friend’s profile, several of the respondents admitted to logging in as their ex using a previously known password. Most commonly, the respondents were looking through Facebook messages for information on new relationships as well as other interactions.
Over half of the respondents admitted that they were jealous of a new picture posted by an ex and approximately a third of the respondents tried to post pictures that would make their ex jealous. In addition, about one third of Facebook users used a Facebook status update to post a “song lyric or quote” that described their ex. Surprisingly, nearly 50 percent of the respondents were still friends with their ex on the social network.
Nearly 75 percent of the respondents have attempted to learn more information about a new person that the ex is dating by visiting that person’s Facebook profile. However, it’s unlikely that they would be able to see much of the profile unless they were friends with that person. In addition, about 64 percent of the respondents used Facebook to read through old correspondence such as comments and messages in order to analyze what went wrong in the relationship.
When asked about prevention of this type of stalking behavior, Lukacs stated ”Deleting seemed to be really effective but it depends on the severity of your creeping behaviour. Some people are active Facebook creepers and seek out information while others are affected by what comes up on their news feed.”
The only place I want to read about my ex is in the Obituary column.
The real sign of maturity is simply moving on because getting stuck on a person whom you know you could never have a genuinely cordial relationship with is unhealthy.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some defriending to do…
Uh,,,first of all, interesting study and something I’ve pondered a good deal as well, having had one relationship begin on facebook and a couple end since then. My bigger picture question being, ‘is it healthy to privy to so much information about our ex’s?’ as the idea of “just moving on” is antiquated, delusional. There is nowhere to move on to, we are all here now. Unfriending is maybe a good choice, but… I guess where my mind short-circuits on this whole thing is- we are all, you me and everyone here, able to communicate with each other all the time, any time. This is new-new life existence as humans. One must actively CHOOSE to NOT communicate all the time. That is what creates the distress, it’s called ego-depletion elsewhere I think. Instead of maybe running into an ex, you can maybe text them, facebook, god help you email them at 3 am with a novel thought or two, and there is a certain psycho-factor in blocking any and all methods of communication in the digital age. I.e. “I changed my phone number, blocked them on facebook, and Google+, and twitter, and blocked my yahoo email account, and deleted our 47 mutual friends, and… well I’m totally over it and moved on now you know?” No, that is kind of psycho, right? Right. So where is the line when we are all connected all the time?
Which leads me to Facebook in particular. The writer here (and comment section) riddled with terms “creeping, stalking, etc” to define following facebook users. I know I am in the minority here but I don’t understand this perception. Logging into their accounts to read private email, ok that is clear stalking. What is available for viewing on facebook, is the result of voyeurism, of the page owner putting forth information to ALL. How the hell is an advanced internet user supposed to not look at their ex’s page? I read this flippin’ blog because it pertains to me vaguely in a general way. For better or worse, my ex’s are a part of my life story, and I theirs. The term “creeping” makes no sense to me whatsoever. I can load a page on fb in half a second. I can deduce from mutual friends what is happening in other friend’s lives (their ex’s, my ex’s, etc), and again, I can’t imagine not being able to do this, to consciously or unconsciously be capable of excluding information instantaneously and effortlessly available that as least peripherally relevant to you. And I think the currrent social implication that we are ‘supposed to’ make them disappear from our psyche and our digital sphere of influence after a relationship ends, that is the source of serious dimentia inn the making. That is the abnormalcy. Which I guess the 90% figure here confirms and hopefully we can get a little more honest about the whole nature of total connectivity and the way it will change our behavior towards one another- when there is no “on” to move towrds because it is always “on”
Or the short answer. My thesis is- Is Facebook evil?
Thanks for the article.
Second
Does this mean 9 out of 10 of my exes are keeping tabs on me? My wife won’t be too happy about this…
OMG… that’s the whole point of Facebook
Jennifer Kutz is our hero! So true…
Jennifer Kutz is our hero! So true…
Wow.. lot of stalkers here, apparently. I havent checked on any of my exe’s. Move on,people
Nope! The ones I’m not friends with, are blocked. Don’t need to, and don’t want to know.
friggin duh!
The other 1 out of 10 have never dated before. Lol
Kind of? I’m still friends with them.
I know mines be looking on my page
Nope
That just Sad , people need to move on