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Romantic breakups on Facebook: new scales for studying post-breakup behaviors, digital distress, and surveillance

Research on Facebook has primarily focused on the benefits of social connectivity, paying little attention to the ways in which this social networking site complicates the termination of romantic relationships. The present exploratory study employs a mixed-methods approach to examine the breakup practices of young people on Facebook and to develop new scales for measuring surveillance of an ex and Facebook breakup distress. The aim of the study is to better understand the relationship between internet electronic surveillance and breakup distress. Findings show that content on Facebook can be a significant source of distress for individuals after a breakup. Young people who engage in higher levels of internet electronic surveillance experience more breakup distress. A methodological innovation of our study is the integration of narrative data obtained from in-depth interviews with survey results, highlighting how qualitative analysis can enrich quantitative studies examining social networking. We discuss implications for research into social relations, breakups, and social media.