Heartbreak is 'worse in the digital age'

[FarCenter]

While spurned lovers could once tear up photographs and burn love letters, records kept on sites like Facebook are much harder to remove because of their sheer volume.

Emails and digital photographs can easily be deleted, but songs, pictures and messages posted on social networks are not so easy to erase, especially if they have been posted online by someone else.

The pervasiveness of content stored on computers, tablets and mobile phones "creates problems during a break-up" because the reminders of their relationship are ever-present, researchers said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10049422/Heartbreak-is-worse-in-the-digital-age.html

[grilled onions]

1. Thy Used To Use Diaries

You broke up with someone you wrote it in the privacy of your home and tucked the little book under the mattress. Today they head for Facebook where the ex,the ex, ex, every relative and friend(they don't have banned from their wall) can get the scoop.
People were very daring once upon a time when a baby would be placed on a fuzzy rug,naked and a picture was born. Of course, today, you try such a thing and the photography police at your local Wal-Mart(or where ever) will report you to the police.
The younger generation does not understand the repercussions of having a silly picture of them very sloshed,perhaps have dressed mugging for the camera. Future jobs may be in jeopardy if the company they seek employment from refuses to hire a class clown,a drinker,someone who may bring tasteless ideas to their company.
One is not alone these days. There are spies,eyes everywhere. You have to act like your great aunt Matilda is always around watching you and more then willing to snitch to your parents when you cross the line!

[Bannakaffalatta]

2. solution:

Don't put your whole life on public view. It's okay to keep some things private.

[Javaman]

4. there is a odd trend lately regarding this...

I find it just plain strange that various people feel this compulsion to broadcast to the world their most private feelings and thoughts.

Yeah, perhaps I'm just getting old and I don't get it, but there is something so personal about keeping important things to oneself.

Call me crazy, but when I had personal issues that I need to discuss, I would talk to a close trusted friend in person.

And perhaps, that's just it, the concept of a close trusted friend has changed somehow. And personal secrets aren't all that important or overly inflated to be more important than what they are so then the need to broadcast them far and wide is almost obsessively required.

or telling a friend would only have the secret posted on facebook anyway.

This "online confessional" is a very fascinating course change in our social fabric.

Is the sharing of embarrassing photos, stories and secrets all that common or is it only by a fringe few? I only keep a facebook page to promote my garden blog, other than that I stay out of it. I post nothing else.

There is certainly a sideshow aspect of facebook that I think attracts many people. They wait to see some sort of "non-trovercy" that they can get all bent out of shape over. My right wing brother and his right wing son post all sorts of stupid crap, but for what point? In regards to that stuff, it's nothing more than another version of the mass emails that were popular a few years back promoting one halfwit right wing talking point or another. The comments following are nothing more than an internet slapfest that does nothing than to pump up the original posters ego.

And that's probably it, facebook, to me has always been about ego. In the past prior to face book, where did over inflated egos go to preen?

meh, I've written to much and solved nothing. Just spit-balling.

[dimbear]

3. Suggested light reading: "The Sorrows of Werther" or the like.

Bound to cheer you young lovers up.