In the information age, break up aftermath is becoming increasingly hard to avoid. We’ve all been plagued by the social media posted of a significant other who is no longer significant in to our lives. Thankfully, Facebook is looking out for all those broken hearts out there. This past Thursday, Facebook announced that they will be testing the breakup protection feature on mobile devices in the United States as a trial before launching worldwide.
This option is to serve as an alternative to completely blocking your ex-husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend. The feature works by allowing you to remove your name from any past posts that you were tagged or mentioned in after changing your relationship status to avoid being reminded of the “time you once shared” in cyberspace. More details have yet to be released on what features this protective service has to offer, but Facebook Product Manager Kelly Winters, wrote in a blog post that, “This work is part of our efforts to develop resources for people who may be going through difficult moments in their lives.”
It is too early to tell if this solution will pose as a credible one, but what is for certain is that this dilemma reflects on how attached this generation is to social media. The necessity for there to be online protection from someone who you were once romantically involved with raises the question of whether or not being instantaneously socially connected to so many people in real time is a good thing or not. Nevertheless, Facebook is taking strides in trying to prevent anymore psycological harm that can be done from seeing the ex-love-of-your-life’s status updates about their new partner. Hopefully, Facebook will be able to figure out a way to effectively clean up after some of the messes that Cupid has created.
