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There’s no doubt Facebook helps reunite old friends. But there is also proof that it rekindles old flames — and new ones, as well.
And the fallout is often divorce.
More than eight out of 10 lawyers reported that there has been an increase in social media mentioned in divorce filings, according to a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
And more than one in three divorce filings in 2011 included the word “Facebook,” reports the Atlanta Business Journal via a survey by Divorce Online, a legal services firm.
“I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the time,” divorce attorney Gary Traystman told SmartMoney.
The New London, Conn. attorney said that 60 percent of the 15 cases he handles each year somehow involve Facebook.
Meanwhile, “friending” someone on Facebook is a lot simpler than approaching someone face to face, and it is speeding up the hooking-up process, according to K. Jason Krafsky, author of the book Facebook and Your Marriage.
“It puts temptation in the path of people who would never in a million years risk having an affair,” Krafsky told SmartMoney.
The comfort of being behind a computer screen may also lead to married folk divulging information about themselves they wouldn’t have done otherwise, and that information could be used in divorce proceedings even if an extra-marital affair didn’t start from a Facebook rendezvous.
Facebook “feels safe, innocent and private,” Atlanta, Ga., lawyer Randy Kessler, chair of the family law section of the American Bar Association, said in the New York Post. “People put an enormous amount of stuff out there voluntarily.”
--JOE GREENE, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
