Meera Pal, wtop.com
WASHINGTON – Years ago, the class ring and the letterman jacket signified you were in a relationship. Today, there’s the Facebook status.
It’s not unusual these days to see the entire course of a relationship play out over social media: From the initial date to the breakup.
A new survey finds that more than one-third of adults have broken up with someone using Facebook, text message or email.
“Social media is becoming another way to distance themselves from anything that’s emotionally uncomfortable,” says Nina Atwood, a licensed therapist and relationship coach who wrote “Temptations of the Single Girl: The Ten Dating Traps You Must Avoid.”
“And, of course breaking up with somebody is one of the most uncomfortable things you can possibly do socially.”
The survey was conducted by Lab42, which does consumer market research using social networks. The company surveyed 500 social network users over the age of 18 and asked them a variety of personal relationship questions.
When asked if they would ever break up with someone using text message, email or Facebook, 40 percent of those surveyed said they would.
“They’re struggling a bit if they’re using social media to break up. They’re probably too frightened to have that risky conversation with another person,” Atwood says. “But in order to have a long-term, meaningful relationship and have it work, you have to be able to have conversations that are uncomfortable from time to time.”
The survey also found that more than half of adults would change their Facebook relationship status immediately after a break-up, even before they tell their friends or waiting until their former significant other has changed theirs.
Jaime from Severn, Md. says her ex-husband “actually told his and my extended family and friends about our separation and divorce via Facebook.”
Atwood says people have always found ways to signify that a relationship is important to them — or not important to them, as the case may be.
“When I was in grade school and middle school you wore somebody’s ring or you did something to signify the significance of that relationship,” Atwood says. “My parents’ generation, they wore class pins.”
“Symbols are important to human beings. We like to use symbols to say that certain things are important or relationships are important.”
Social media is also changing the way people are initiating and developing their relationships. The survey found that the majority of respondents (24 percent) would contact someone using Facebook to ask them out on a first date, while 16 percent would use the good ol’ fashioned phone.
And, after meeting that special someone, more than half (57 percent) of respondents said they Facebook “friend” that person.
“What you’re seeing with social media is just an expression of the fact that people don’t feel all that terribly safe interacting,” Atwood says.
On the more positive side of social media use, 64 percent of those surveyed said they would or do post romantic messages on their significant other’s Facebook wall.
To see all the results from the survey, follow this link.
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