Living in the digital age creates a love affair with electronic communication. People use social media sites like Facebook, e-mail and text messages to send life updates in a split second. And sometimes people decide to say goodbye to a relationship the same way.
In March 2011, 13 percent of adults considered e-mail an appropriate method for breaking up with someone, according to a Yahoo! Mail poll. “We’re all so used to just typing things. So, I really don’t think it makes that much of a difference whether it’s said in person or over e-mail,” UMD junior criminology and criminal justice major Ian McKinnie said.
The Boston Public Health Commission in August 2011 held a summit on breakups that focused primarily on the roles of social media and electronic communication as the means to an end of a relationship.
“Organizers encouraged the crowd to eschew parting ways over text message or Facebook, the most common teen break-up methods,” according to Benoit Denizet-Lewis in a New York Times article on the summit. “Attendees were advised- with mixed results- to bravely confront the awkwardness of face-to-face breakups.”
Choosing electronic communication to the cut the cord in a relationship comes with positive and negative consequences to consider. Yes, electronic communication is convenient and quick. But it can be cold and easily misunderstood.
McKinnie reflects on initiating his first electronic breakup. “I felt definitely more comfortable doing it, because it’s hard when you actually like somebody,” McKinnie said. “I knew that if I saw her reaction I’d feel bad and probably guilt myself, like, ‘Well, maybe we can work things out’ but I didn’t want to.”
“I think I speak for every person out there when I say breaking up via any technology feels like being run over by a monster trunk in the middle of night without anyone around to call for help,” expresses UMD senior journalism major Stephanie Weaver. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m not worth a phone call?’”
Sometimes it can be a safe way to end a truly rough and rocky relationship with the speed and separation electronic communication provides. As UMD junior communications major Jessica Clark explains, “The only way I could really see a positive to it is if it’s an abusive relationship.”
Other times a digital breakup can do severe harm, especially noting the interactions of the two previous lovers post-heartbreak. Clark discusses her friend’s reaction to the end of her one-year relationship delivered via Facebook:
“She was distraught and really pissed,” Clark said. “He would have had a better chance just breaking up with her in person, because she wouldn’t have been as angry, but she screamed at him and cried and I think she punched him, so it was not a good moment.”
There is also the public nature of popular electronic breakup methods, like social media. A positive: it notifies everyone you know (friends, family, potential new hook-ups) that you are free at last. In fact, there is even a web app for that. The Facebook Breakup Notifier will send you e-mails of selected friends when they switch their relationship status.
A negative: The entire world knows your business and can meddle in it. Shirin Najafi of Glamour warns readers to not use their status updates to publicize their relationship updates in “How Facebook, Twitter and Gchat Can Ruin Your Relationship.”
The addition of digital breakups to the realm of relationships can be viewed as an added convenience or an added mess and easy-out to deliver the painful blow that can break hearts.