Breakup updates on Facebook ruining relationships

Has your ex-partner conveyed all personal details of your breakup to common friends on Facebook, leaving you embarrassed? Well, you are not alone.

According to new research, not just romance but breakup updates going viral among common friends are complicating relationships among teenagers.

"We tend to talk about how Facebook, Twitter and social media create relationships, but how about when you need to get rid of someone," asked study researcher Anabel Quan-Haase, a sociologist at University of Western Ontario in Canada.

To understand how social media impacts breakups, Quan-Haase and her team spoke to 107 young people who had broken up with their partners.

They found that those who initiated a breakup tended to be less troubled by social media issues than those who were dumped.

Nearly 62 percent of them said they spent a lot of time re-analysing wall posts and messages from their ex.

According to them, updating their relationship on Facebook caused a flurry of reactions from family and friends.

Such messages often reopened breakup wounds.

"Most say they do not want to go to their ex's profile, but at the end of the day, the temptation is so high that they are constantly going back," Quan-Haase noted.

Some felt that the ex was flaunting his or her newly single status whereas the observer was trying to keep a low profile.

She shared her findings at the 109th annual American Sociological Association meeting in Chicago recently.