In a public release of data from the silicon valley giant Facebook, interesting new information was published that tracked the seasonality of relationship formation. The company gathered information from 2010 and “looked at how different times of the year affect the beginning and ending of relationships”. The data revealed that the top four days of relationships to be formed fell around February 14-15 and December 24-25. The most popular day(s) for relationships to break up were towards the end of the week, possibly due to “[waiting] to end their old relationships in time to spend the weekend with friends or get back in the game with someone new”.
It fascinates me that social media has gotten to a point where not only is the data interesting, but it is very relevant in the way relationships are structured in modern society. Being in my particular age group, the generation that was raised with technology and social media as what will become our pastime, we are self-conscious of how others perceive us and how we are presented on the internet. If an individual is in an established relationship, it could be embarrassing if their relationship status would show up as single so suddenly. But do we really need information about when individuals are getting together and breaking up? Some may say yes, but many would also say no, regardless it is impressive that Facebook has been compiling this data and their presentation was a quick and informative read.