Unfriend, Unfriend! Are You A Deleter, A Keeper Or A Disposer When It Comes To Your Exes?

Breaking up is hard to do and thanks to social media (cough, Facebook, cough!) it’s even harder. When you break-up with someone you still see their face plastered all over your news feed and it sucks trying to untag yourself from all those loved-up ‘coupley’ pictures on your profile.

But what kind of post break-up Facebook user are you? Some social media savvy researchers at Lancaster University in the UK and the University of California in Santa Cruz interviewed a group of 19-34 year olds and found that after a split we tend to fall into three specific categories: deleters, keepers and selective disposers.

The deleters tend to delete every single online remanent of their relationship because they can’t cope with seeing their ex.

“Having photos on my phone and computer did cause me to feel sad, but I immediately removed them after the break-up in order to move on,” said one deleter.

Deleters tend to erase every memory of their relationship as quickly as possible

Other deleters said that they untagged pictures and unfriended their exes straight away. The vast majority of deleters said that they usually blocked their exes. However, the researchers pointed out that this kind of behaviour is usually impulsive and many deleters regret saving some reminders of the relationship after some time has passed.

Keepers were more likely to hold on to pictures, emails and tweets from their exes in an attempt to remind them of the good times they had in the relationship. However, researchers discovered that keepers were ten times more likely to become cyberstalkers – they regularly looked at their ex’s Facebook page and couldn’t resist checking out the profiles of any other women who were posting on his page.

Have you ever unfriended an ex on Facebook or do you just block them?

Finally the selective disposers had a “more adaptive strategy” according to the researchers. This group tended to deal with relationship remnants when they felt they were ready. They kept valued memories and got rid of the others. Researchers discovered that this group also tended to limit their use of social media and usually walk away from a relationship with a better understanding of what happened.

“I’m glad I met him and glad we broke up. He helped me figure out what I don’t want or need in a relationship, so for that I am thankful,” said one selective disposer.

To be fair, those selective disposers may be on to something with their method. We’ll try and learn from them in the future...