January 10, 2012 : Survey Says Facebook Playing a Greater Role in Divorce

By Ron Garant

Not surprisingly, a new survey conducted by a U.K. online divorce site indicates that compared to the same survey done two years ago, the number of behavior petitions citing “Facebook” as evidence in U.K. divorces has risen from 20% to 33%. Both surveys involved 5,000 petitions.

In addition to flirting with members of the opposite sex, evidence included bad-mouthing their exes and exposing private information about them. The top three reasons for citing Facebook were:

- Inappropriate messages to members of the opposite sex.

- Separated spouses posting nasty comments about each other.

- Facebook friends reporting spouse’s behavior.

In comparison, there were only 20 “tweets” on Twitter regarding behavior allegations.

Mark Keenan, a spokesman for Divorce-Online said, “Social networking has become the primary tool for communication and is taking over from text and e-mail in my opinion. If someone wants to have an affair or flirt with the opposite sex [that’s] the easiest place to do it. Also the use of Facebook to make comments about ex-partners to friends has become extremely common with both sides using Facebook to vent their grievances against each other. People need to be careful what they write on their walls as the courts are seeing these posts being used in financial disputes and [custody] cases as evidence.”

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