Facebook status updates can be creepy and revealing, but they can also help predict when you're likely to find yourself dumped. Naturally, there's good news and bad news to be found in the data.


David McCandless, the fellow behind some of the stunning data visualizations we've posted in the past, gave a rather fascinating TED talk a while back. And what stood out among all the clever trivia and tidbits about data were the statistics he shared about romances.


Apparently David and his team looked at about 10,000 Facebook status updates and searched for patterns related to break ups. Their discoveries? You're very likely to get dumped on Mondays, right before Spring Break, two weeks before Christmas, and at some point before the summer holidays.

The good news about the whole mess is that it seems that people feel quite bad about dumping someone right on Christmas Day, so you can breathe a bit easier while unwrapping your presents. [Mathias Mikkelsen via Anthony De Rosa via Geekosystem]