Imagine the first thing in the morning when you browse your Facebook news feed and see a notification that your ex is now in a relationship. Or maybe the memories feature shows a photo from that beach vacation you took together last year. Whether the mother of your ex-lover's new lover appears under People You May Know. Such scenarios are real and not uncommon, according to a new study from the University of Colorado Boulder that examines how breaking up is even more difficult in the digital age.
“Before social media, breakups were still bad, but it was much easier to distance yourself from the person,” said study lead author Anthony Pinter. “It can make it nearly impossible to move forward if you're constantly bombarded with memories in different places online.”
The research team recruited participants who had had a disturbing encounter online during the past 18 months that led to their break-up and interviewed them for over an hour. A disturbing trend emerged among 19 individuals who underwent in-depth interviews:Even as people took every measure they saw possible to remove their exes from their online lives, social media returned them — often several times a day.
“A lot of people assume they can just unfriend or unfollow their ex and they won't have to deal with this again,” Pinter said. “Our work shows that this is not the case.”
News Feed, the primary interface that opens when one launches Facebook, has been a major source of distress, delivering news of ex-lovers announcing that they were in a new relationship. In one case, a participant noted that his roommate already "liked" his ex's post. He was the last of his friends to know.
Memories, reviving messages from the past, were equally heartbreaking, with one participant recalling how a sweet, years-old message from his ex-wife popped up out of nowhere and delivered an "emotional blow."
Many shared stories of meeting exes through their comments in shared spaces, such as groups or photos of mutual friends.
Take A Break works – for some
In 2015, Facebook launched the Take A Break feature, which detects when a user switches from “in a relationship” to “single” and asks if the platform wants to hide that person's activities. But people like Pinter, who don't use the Relationship Status tool, never get such an offer.
"Facebook doesn't know we broke up because Facebook never knew we were in a relationship," he said.
Even if someone unfriends their ex, if a mutual friend posts a photo without tagging him in it, that photo can still flow through their feed.
And even when they completely blocked their exes, some reported that the ex's friends and family still show up on Facebook as suggestions under People You May Know.
“Will I never be free of all this nonsense online?” an annoyed participant asked.
The authors suggest that such encounters could be minimized if platform designers pay more attention to the “social periphery” – all those people, groups, photos and events that arise around a connection between two users.
For those looking to rid their online lives of memories of lost love, they recommend unfriending, untagging, using Take a Break, and blocking, although these options may not be foolproof.
Your best bet, said Pinter, "Take a break from social media for a while until you're in a better place."
