
 
 
 
 
 
 A very interesting data visualization from infographic wizard David McCandless is making its way around the web, depicting the most common times a year that people break up — via Facebook status updates. 
 
 McCandless whipped out the chart during a TED talk this past summer. Apparently, he and his team scraped 10,000 status updates for the phrases "break up" and "broken up," and made the following discoveries: 1). A ton of people break up before social occasions like Spring Break and the summer, 2). Mondays aren't just the start of the work week — there're the end of many a relationship, 3). People have the decency not to dump their significant others on Christmas Day. 
 
 The above chart is just another addition to a growing canon of information depicting both Facebook's effect on — and role in — the dating realm. In the past, we have explored the negative effects of Facebook on one's romantic life, as well as how some people use the social networking site to end things. 
 
 What effect — if any — has Facebook had on your dating life? 
 
 (via Mathias Mikkelsen) 
 
 Image courtesy of iStockphoto, A1Stock ||||| The holiday season is upon us, and with the familial stress and mass consumerism and overeating comes its attendant romantic fallout. But can a chart currently making its way around the Internet actually predict when your relationship is likely to end? British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless mapped out the data from 10,000 Facebook status updates to figure out what days and times of year breakups were most common. The results, first presented at a TED Talk, seemed to indicate a spring cleaning just before spring break. The chart also spiked just before Valentine's Day and Christmas, and on Mondays (presumably all of them), with summer and fall being the safest time from sudden singledom. But before the breakup-phobic use this info as a handy guide for when to avoid their loved ones, DigitalSociety blogger Paul Crowe would like to point out some serious flaws.
– A graphic attracting attention across the web purports to show when it's most common for couples to break up—based, of course, on Facebook status updates. By searching for the phrases "broken up" or "break up," it delivers supposed revelations. For one, we are collectively shrewd about breakups, cutting the chord before vacation times like spring break or summer—but we won't dump someone on Christmas Day. And Mondays are the most likely day of the week to sever ties, Mashable notes. New York's Daily Intel blog is skeptical and rounds up flaws from critics, including the fact that "broken up" and "break up" hardly cover all the ways people describe their heartbreak. Also, the graph looked at 10,000 status updates, not 10,000 different users. People talking about their own breakups over and over, or celebs' breakups, would have messed things up. Finally, the graph skews toward people who overshare on Facebook, "in which case they probably deserved it."