Skip navigation

You, Me, and Facebook: Surprising Statistics

Originally Posted on Author's Blog

Facebook Love Life

Facebook knows all about your relationship, whether you believe it or not. It’s true – keeping quiet about your love life isn’t fooling Zuckerberg & Company anymore. Why? Because with close to a billion monthly active users, they have enough data to practically predict what is happening in your love life and when it will take place.

::Our blog goes well with breakfast. Sign up for email delivery and never miss an update.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin recently summed up all the data they’d pulled together from Facebook’s user demographics and statistics, and their findings were a mixed bag. Take a look at this infographic (Source: World Wide Learn and Mashable) and see if you’re surprised. A few goodies:

  • It’s all about roses and mistletoe: The most common dates for new relationships to become “Facebook Official” are February 14th (49% more likely) and December 25th (34% more likely).
  • Oddly enough, one of the peak times for break-ups appears to be about two weeks before Christmas, with early spring and mid-summer also proving to be bad juju for love birds.
  • Heartbroken people apparently love Drake. The singer scored with two of the Top 5 most-listened-to songs by users who had recently endured a nasty split (“Take Care” and “Crew Love”).
  • With married life snagging more and more of the Facebook “originals” (adults who were college kids between 2004 and 2007, at the beginning of the social networking website’s rise), this shouldn’t surprise you: 31% of users are now married.
  • 37% of users are currently single (and ready to mingle, we assume), and may or may not be part of the same 37% of users who became single in the year 2011 alone.
  • Surprising: People actually tend to take longer to tell Facebook friends about a new relationship than they do about a break-up. You might expect a new relationship to inspire shouting from the rooftops and off-key singing of love songs, but only 38% of users reported a new relationship immediately, while 52% of users wanted everyone to know they were single ASAP.
  • However, some things still do not require collegiate level research: Men who posted that they were “In a relationship” reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction (duh), while women who argued with their partner over said relationship status reported lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Mars and Venus – the saga continues.
Chapters
United States
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Belgium
Brazil
Cambodia
Canada
China
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
France
Germany
Global
Greece
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Ireland
Isle of Man
Israel
Italy
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kuwait
Malaysia
Mexico
Moldova
Mongolia
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Oman
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sweden
Switzerland
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom