A University of Indiana professor explains why, in an era when your partner can break up with you on Facebook, you are hurt twice.
To change relationship status on Facebook from In a Relationship to Single is the privilege of the party that has been dumped – but not everybody knows this.
What are the rules when a relationship is laid to rest with the aid of social media? Ilana Gershon, the University of Indiana professor explains the codes of good manners applicable to online breakups to The Guardian. According to her, only one of two students she teaches know that it’s always the dumped person who should change his or her status first,
‘In the digital era, your heart is broken twice in such cases. First, when you are dumped. Then, when you realize you have lost control over the way your family and friends find out about the breakup, a control you would like to have yourself’, explains Gherson.
The professor interviewed 72 US students to find out how they use social media to get out of a romantic relationship.
The conclusion is that every single person creates his or her own rules and etiquette when they announce a breakup on Facebook, but most of the time they succeed to hurt their exes even more.
‘There is no manual to teach us how to correctly break up on Facebook’, reiterates Gershon, adding that people still don’t know how to properly use communication technologies in case of “unpleasant social matters” such as breakups.