When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, he intended for it to work as a student directory, the photo address book students referred to as "The Facebook." Then, his website took off, making the once primitive address book into a full-blown social media giant including photos, status updates, mindless quizzes, event pages and much more.
There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook. Fifty percent of active users log on to Facebook in any given day. The average user has 130 friends. But what's the best statistic? People spend more than 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
So what are two things people focus on while on Facebook? Their status updates and their profile picture. Since we are given these two options to express ourselves on the website, how have people taken advantage of it?
Recently, David McCandless, an award-winning writer, designer and author based in London, created an infographic chart showing the most common times a year people break up using Facebook status updates.
According to mashable.com, McCandless and his team scraped 10,000 status updates for the phrases "break up" and "broken up" and made the following discoveries:
A ton of people break up before social occasions like spring break and the summer.
Mondays aren't just the start of the work week, there're the end of many a relationship.
People have the decency not to dump their significant others on Christmas Day.
Another article on the same website pointed out five ways Facebook changed dating for the worst:
Overanalyzing drives you crazy.
You see all of the action your ex is getting.
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Relationships and break-ups are public.
It's a record of every relationship mistake you've made.
Other people's comments will make your date jealous.
How wonderful.
Updates and relationship statuses aren't the only way people are ending their relationship saga. Once you break up, now comes the new default minus your ex. And as they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
The profile picture is the public face of who you are on Facebook. A CNN article posted last week actually highlights how certain profile pictures make you "look like a tool."
As the article quotes, "every day, four billion messages are shot off via Facebook and next to those four billion messages is something that could make or break the legitimacy of your missive — or, at the very least amuse or horrify your friends: your profile picture."
So here are three ways that article suggests you can avoid looking like a total jerk in your default:
The MySpace Shot: the picture where you pose in front of a mirror, mainly wearing less clothes and snap the picture with your phone. It's the number one way to get attention, but so is puking at a party or being that guy who falls from Skybox into BrickStreet.
Subbing in a picture of an object, animal or baby: It's obviously not you. Also, your friends may start to wonder if you've been in a freak accident.
Holding lots of alcohol: Unless you want your friends to call and make you a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, pick something a bit more flattering.
All in all, your break-ups are not always the best story to tell, but neither are heart wrenching, public displays of your break-up on Facebook. Don't go rogue with your profile pictures right after your downfall either.
If anything, be courteous about how you handle it all. If anything, send a Facebook message.
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