Press Association –
One in three young adults (34%) would delete all images of their partner on social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter if their relationship broke down, new research has found.
Two fifths (42%) would "unfriend" their ex-boyfriend or girlfriend within a month of a split, while almost a third (31%) said they would extend the cull and remove all online contact with their ex-partner's friends and family, according to the study.
Behavioural experts said the findings showed young people were now using social media as "decisive means" to confirm the end of a relationship.
But the YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults aged 18 to 34 also found nearly a fifth (17%) thought it was acceptable to "stalk" a former partner's social media page to check if they were in a new relationship.
Two in three (65%) said they would flaunt their new unattached status by changing their Facebook profile to "single" within the first month of a break-up, while one in five (18%) would change their status to "in a relationship" if they found someone new in the same period.
The research, by communications agency Diffusion, found nearly a third (30%) believed it was acceptable to upload and tag pictures with a new love interest within the first month of a split.
Psychologist P rofessor Craig Jackson, from Birmingham City University, said: "These findings confirm what many psychologists have suspected about those who have grown up surrounded by social media; that they fall in "digital love" quickly - t hat is, to provide online confirmation and validation of a new relationship.
"But are just as capable of falling out of it quickly too, and with some clinical precision.
"When new romances form the digital confirmation such as a Facebook status is often viewed as the confirmation of the new relationship that makes it both real and public.
"It makes sense then that this method is also used as a decisive means of confirming to the world the end of a romance."
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