Facebook linked to divorce: Is Zuckerberg marriage doomed?

GlobalPost

Does Facebook actually cause divorce, or does Facebook just help you realize that your spouse has become gross and annoying more efficiently? While that question is still up for debate, there's no doubt that Facebook now plays a major role in divorce court. Over 80 percent of US divorce attorneys say that social networking issues have increasingly come up in divorce court, Smart Money reported Monday.

 “I see Facebook issues breaking up marriages all the time,” Gary Traystman, a divorce attorney, told Smart Money. 

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The social networking site has also been used to help courts make major decisions, such as decisions about alimony and child custody, Smart Money reported. “It helps me cross-examine a witness,” attorney Randy Kessler told Smart Money.

A survey by UK website Divorce Online also found that 33 percent of behavior petitions for divorce contained the word "Facebook."

Is Mark Zuckerberg's recent marriage to Priscilla Chan doomed? Probably not. A Wall Street Journal column from last year points out that this particular correlation does not equal causation. After all, "Facebook might be substituting for other tools that disrupted earlier relationships," the WSJ said.

And NPR Boston reported today that incidents of cheating or alleged cheating cited in divorce cases has not actually increased. However, the percentage of cases in which Facebook is cited as a factor in the cheating has. 

The take-home message: don't tag yourself in Facebook pictures with your mistress.

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