Facebook; Ruining relationships one accidental post at a time.

'1 in 5 divorce petitions processed cite Facebook'

'20% of all divorce petitions have references to Facebook'

'Computer firms are now cashing in by creating software

programs for people to spy on their spouses'

A woman of 28 years of age divorced her husband after discovering her husband was having a virtual affair with a woman whom he had never met. Whilst another woman of 35 even discovered her husband was divorcing her via Facebook. I would of hated to be their divorce attorneys!

Here is an unfortunate example of a relationship gone sour because of social networking related issues on the Jeremy Kyle show USA. The fact that a relationship can break down without someone physically saying or doing something to another person to cause a break-up is something of a new reality to us. Before, say 10 years ago, the most common reason for divorce was financial difficulties and abuse from a partner. Now its because of social networking posts, pictures and flirty messages sent to people many of the senders haven't actually met. Quite like the little grey bloke explained on my previous post.

'facebook dating - for those wiht no socail skills! who cant talk to a woman in REAL LIFE face to face!'

          -Youtube User (2 years ago)

Although I don't totally agree with this statement made by a fellow Youtube user, I do kinda agree that there are no social skills included in talking to people on social networks. I don't know about you (although I probably could know everything about you just by typing your name into Google) but have you ever met someone in real life that you have only ever spoke to on line? Awkward isn't it? Of course not all the time as many people met there spouses or partners on social networking sites, in fact, its the third most common way in which people met there partners according to a survey by match.com. Remember back in the 90's where everybody thought of Internet dating as a last resort as it was widely thought that Internet dater's were the social rejects of society? (Well, I don't because I wasn't born then, but hopefully you do.) Well it turns out all those Internet daters in the late 90s weren't social rejects after all; they were just a few years ahead of the digital Zeitgeist.  So I guess that social networking sites aren't all bad as demonstrated  in a working paper presented at the 2010 American Sociological Association meeting showing that 25% of new marriages originated from on line meetings. So social networking can be described as the root of both destruction and creation in some relationships, not all remember, and the amount of relationships originating from social networking sites I predict will rise (but please note I am not an Internet expert and also wrong in most of my predictions of the future, but the thing is with social networking sites is that they are unpredictable, some fail some are overnight success's). Let me leave you with a statistic from this source  http://cp.match.com/cppp/media/CMB_Study.pdf .

• 15 years ago (that's 1997 people) Social networking sites accounted for 0% of marriages.

• Fast forward 15 years (that's 2012) Social networking sites account for 17% of marriages.

• In the last year, more than twice as many marriages occurred between people who met on an on line dating site than met in bars, at clubs and other social events combined.

• 1 out of 5 single people have dated someone they met on an on line dating site.

• 1 out of 5 people in a new committed relationship (including marriage) met their significant other on an on line dating site.

I'll see you on match.com!

What about friendships?

I think we can all relate to this picture...

Of course not all relationships are between a couple, we all have friends (Hopefully you do, but if you don't, well then this is just really awkward), but does social networking stunt friendship growth? Many good friendships bloom on networking sites and last for years, but on the flip side, how many friendships between BBF's (again if you don't have one of these then I have just rubbed salt in your wound) have ended because of something related to these networks?