A new research study done by a Western University master's candidate revealed that at least 88% of the respondents in her study are stalking their exes through the popular social networking site, Facebook.

Veronika Lucas, the author of the thesis entitled "It's Complicated: Romantic breakups and their aftermath on Facebook", revealed some interesting details as to how relationships are being handled in Facebook. In her thesis, the student wanted to also find out the extent of how former lovers cannot let go especially in terms of utilizing the popular social networking site. She also disclosed the reason behind her research stating "I wanted to see how breakup distress is related to Facebook use. What I found was that whether you were on Facebook all the time or not, your distress level changed based on how much surveillance you were doing (post break-up)."

Most of the participants in her study was between the age range of 18-35 for the survey respondents while the interview respondents were between 21-39 years old. All of the participants have suffered some major heartache for the past 12 months.

Here are some of the interesting findings in her research:

  • 88% of the respondents have stalked their exes through Facebook.
  • 70% admitted in using a mutual friend's profile or logging in as that mutual friend to stalk and see if their ex is sleeping around.
  • 74% stalked their ex's new partner (or even rumored new partner).
  • 64% said they re-read or analyzed old messages from their ex.
  • 52% said they were jealous of a picture their ex posted.50% deleted pictures of their ex from their profile.
  • 48% of people remained friends with their exs on Facebook.
  • 33% admitted to have a profile post of a song lyric or a quote about their ex.
  • 31% admitted posting pictures to try and make their exes jealous.