Breaking up has always been excruciating, but at least in the old days lovers could split, move on and retain their dignity. Now, in the age of social media, extrication is nearly impossible. The pain of a breakup is nourished by an endless real-time stream of Facebook status updates, Instagram photos and tweets about one’s ex.

Until recently, anyone with two fingers and a smartphone was subjected to this kind of self-torture. But a new set of apps and Web sites created to ease the pain of breakups may be changing that.

One is Killswitch, a mobile app that promises to “seamlessly and discreetly remove all traces of your ex from your Facebook,” that was released, defiantly, on Valentine’s Day.

Erica Mannherz, 28, who created the app with her friend, Clara de Soto, 27, said the app reduces the bitter taste of a breakup. The two women, both of Manhattan, came up with the idea after seeing a friend go through breakup after breakup online. “The poor girl, her Facebook profile was a minefield of elements of her defunct relationship,” Ms. de Soto said. “We couldn’t believe there wasn’t a mechanism on Facebook or on social media that answered that.”