





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