Facebook divorce

Charlotte Divorce Attorney Matthew R. Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m considering separating from my spouse; what actions should I refrain from doing?”

Facebook was invented ostensibly for old friends to connect, namely old classmates whose faces might have appeared in a different, older kind of medium—in a yearbook.

The twist was that was then and this is now—this being the digital age in which no distance is too great for old friends to meet.

Bridging the distance of time and space may be proving too great, however, for some married couples, as Facebook has become the “it” factor in a growing number of divorces. According to the Daily Mirror, a survey of caseloads at major family-law firms shows Facebook is a factor in as many as one-third of modern divorces.

Facebook’s role in martial harmony and divorces dovetails with other issues its ubiquitous presence has raised in the lives of its billion users. Using Facebook and posting information about one’s day-to-day life and activities means kissing privacy goodbye.

Board Certified Family Law Specialist Matt Arnold of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question ” I’m not getting along with my husband. We’ve been married two weeks and it was a mistake. Can’t I just get an annulment?”

Users have known for months—maybe longer—that Facebook lets you see if any of your friends are registered sex offenders. The Friend Verifier application—used over 8-millions times to date—lets users scroll over their friend lists to find matches with sex offender registries.

Friends like these, right Facebook? What does the social networking site say about people closer than friends, namely spouses? A lot.

Facebook doesn’t yet have an application that can predict whether users’ marriages will end in divorce, but researchers from Boston University’s College of Communication and the Pontifical Catholic University say using Facebook may put users at a greater risk of divorce.

The researchers studied relationships between use of social media sites like Facebook and marital satisfaction by comparing survey data from spouses with divorce statistics from individual states in the United States. The study, they said, could raise profound questions about the impact of social media on day-to-day human behavior.

While researchers stressed that many other factors contribute to individual divorces, they did observe a correlation between spikes in Facebook usage and spikes in divorce rates in state populations. The correlating spikes did not indicate that Facebook caused divorces, but researchers said that seeking to understand the role of Facebook in divorce and martial satisfaction was worthy of further policy-oriented research endeavors by social scientists.

Articles Tagged with Facebook divorce

Correlation found between social media usage and divorce; causation not established