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How breaking up is much harder with social media

So you’ve just broken up with your ex-lover, or he/she has broken up with you. Whatever the case, the next best thing to do is to move on, right?
But how can you move on when your social media still reminds you of your ex?
A study conducted by the Colorado University Boulder showed that breaking up is even harder to move on from nowadays in the digital age.
“Before social media, breakups still sucked, but it was much easier to get distance from the person,” said Anthony Pinter, a doctoral student in the information science department and lead author of the study published in the journal Proceedings of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). “But now, it can make it almost impossible to move on if you are constantly being bombarded with reminders in different places online.”
Researchers interviewed 19 participants who experienced an upsetting encounter online due to a breakup. A disturbing trend emerged: even those who unfriended, unfollowed, or blocked their exes, social media returns with memories of their exes.
READ ALSO: PH company offers break-up leave, date allowance for employees
News Feed, the primary interface that opens when one launches Facebook, was a major source of distress, delivering news of ex-lovers announcing they are in a new relationship and making it “Facebook official.”
In one case, a participant noticed his roommate had already “liked” his ex’s post. He was the last of his friends to know.
Memories, which revive posts from years’ past, was equally heart rending, with one participant recalling how a sweet years-old message from his ex-wife popped up out of nowhere delivering an “emotional wallop.”
Many also shared stories of encountering exes via their comments in shared spaces, such as groups or event pages or mutual friends’ pictures.
“In real life, you get to decide who gets the cat and who gets the couch, but online it’s a lot harder to determine who gets this picture or who gets this group,” said Pinter.
Even when someone unfriends their ex, if a mutual friend posts a picture tagging them in it, that picture may still flow through their feed.
READ ALSO: At the advent of new technology, how can Filipinos avoid the pitfalls of having too many gadgets and social media browsing?
And even when they blocked their exes entirely—putting up a wall around themselves so their former partner couldn’t see their posts either—some reported that the ex’s friends and family would still show up on Facebook as suggestions under People You May Know.
For those wanting to rid their online lives from reminders of love lost, the researchers recommend unfriending, untagging, using Take a Break, and blocking, while understanding they may not be foolproof.
Your best bet, said Pinter: “Take a break from social media for a while until you are in a better place.”

Staff Report

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