Are You Going to Delete Me? Latent Profiles of Post-Relationship Breakup Social Media Use and Emotional Distress

When a relationship ends, former partners must make decisions about their online, often public, connections and history, which involve a complex disentangling process. We examined post-breakup behaviors including monitoring, interacting, deleting posts/photos, deleting the former partner, deleting the partner's family/friends, stopping social media (SM) use, and keeping digital possessions. Participants (N = 256) who had experienced a breakup within the last year completed an online survey. Approximately 38 percent reported experiencing distress over the breakup sometimes or more often. Utilizing latent profile analysis, we identified four latent classes (or profiles) of breakup SM behaviors; we also examined associations between the class and breakup emotional distress. Most participants were clean breakers (61.3 percent), who did zero to very little monitoring, interacting, or deleting and were unlikely to delete their ex-partner, stop use, or keep digital possessions. Wistful reminiscers (12.9 percent) were similar to clean breakers in terms of engaging in very little of any deleting behaviors, stopping use, or keeping digital possessions; however, they engaged in frequent amounts of monitoring their ex-partner as well as interacting with their ex-partner and their ex-partner's family/friends. Ritual cleansers (15.6 percent) were similar to clean breakers in terms of engaging in very little to no monitoring and interacting; however, they engaged in deleting their SM history, their ex-partner's family/friends, and their ex-partner. Impulsives (10.2 percent) engaged in high amounts of all the SM behaviors. In terms of emotional distress, impulsives showed the highest levels of distress, followed by wistful reminiscers, ritual cleansers, and then clean breakers.