Facebook Knows When You'll Get Dumped 474
Pickens writes "Cnet reports that according to a graphic making the rounds online that uses Facebook status updates to chart what time of year people are splitting up, there are three big spikes on the calendar for breakups — just after Valentine's Day, just before spring break and two weeks before Christmas. British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless, who specializes in showcasing data in visual ways, compiled the chart after scraping 10,000 Facebook status updates for the phrases 'breakup' and 'broken up.' 'Might I suggest that, immediately after Valentine's, some women might be casting men from their sight, appalled that their lovers could think of nothing more romantic than roses from the supermarket and dinner at Outback Steakhouse,' writes Chris Matyszczyk. 'Continuing with this obviously accurate analysis, perhaps it's men who do more of the dumping just before spring break, as for some —however unfairly — their main concern lies in how their girl will look on the beach.'"
Could that possibly be any more misleading? (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook doesn’t “know” when I’ll get dumped. Aggregated data, which happened to be obtained from facebook, revealed that the average person is more likely to get dumped at certain times of the year, but that’s useless when making a prediction for an individual.
Besides which, I’d need a girlfriend first.
Re:Could that possibly be any more misleading? (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone made a bot that "plays" facebook yet?
I bet a bot could be very socially successful on facebook, given the depth of the interaction. We could approach machine intelligence by lowering the standard for the Turing test.
Re:Could that possibly be any more misleading? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it wouldn't be too difficult to do one for /. either. All it would have to do is post immediately after the article hits the front page, and say:
"The analysis here is hugely flawed. Sure, they say [something from the summary], but clearly haven't taken into account [something taken into account halfway through the article], so it can hardly be confirmed that [title]."
That's a Score:5, Insightful comment right there.
Re:So do I... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was actually implying that I'd found such a person, and extrapolating it to mean that anyone could. That's probably flawed.
Re:So do I... (Score:2, Interesting)
The first time I had my now-girlfriend over, I dumped a load of comic in her lap, then left her alone while I took a shower. :3
She was still there when I got out.
This "awesome girlfriend" litmus test is 100% accurate so far.
Is there an app for that? (Score:4, Interesting)
There's potential for a great Facebook app here - the Dump-O-Meter. This would monitor messages to and from someone you're in a relationship with. Tally the positive and negative adjectives, and the response timing. If you send to your SO, how long does it take to get a response, and vice versa? How has that response time changed over time?
Collect this data for a large number of users, and observe when the "In a relationship" status changes. Dump the data into a machine learning algorithm like a support vector machine and build a predictive model. To analyze messages, repurpose a spam filter program.
Provide the user with warning messages when the predictor says the risk of being dumped is climbing. Attach ads for flowers, candy, travel, etc.
Generate revenue by selling lists of people just dumped to dating services.
Context (Score:5, Interesting)
The guy's completely ignored context though.
What about school/college university terms breaking up? They all break up for spring break and christmas.
I expect more people round those times were blogging things like 'I can't wait until we break up for christmas'' than were saying they were dumped. Which makes the entire chart meaningless.
Re:So do I... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's one part of a story.
I have a friend who just got divorced as well. He says "she became a different person" and "she's crazy now" but, oddly enough, everyone else picked up the warning signs before they got married. Of course, he didn't want to hear them until she was carousing around with a guy from her work.
Never trust the person telling those kind of stories. Inevitably, they won't accept that there were flaws in their partner until the turning point. That's because they were too in love or too determined to get married, no matter what.
Re:I read slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, but what are ya going to do? You need to fuck something, and they have the parts that fit best for a guy.
That being said...you have to learn how they think, and you can use it against them, or at least...to your benefit. There's lots of guys out there that have studied this...do a little googling on PUA's, and you can find a lot of info out there on how female psych works. Basically society has been brainwashing men the wrong way about a lot of things, especially how to act around and treat women. Deep down, they really DO want men to take the initiate, be the leader of the group, etc.
Not saying be a jackass, but know what it is to be a man, confident in how you act and know what YOU want. Be there to lead her. A woman doesn't respect a man she can walk all over...that I think that's what you alluding to in your statement. If you try to bend over backwards to give her everything, she'll take it....and likely will be fucking someone else on the side that is more of a bad boy, etc.
However, that being said. the timing for breakups seems bad in the article. The best time to break up with a chick, is before Valentine's day...save yourself some cash. Just get back with her before "Steak and Blow-job" day....
Re:Picky, picky, picky (Score:3, Interesting)
Different people get the "I feel loved" feeling from different things. Some people respond well to being given gifts. (It's big in my wife's family. I could honestly get by just fine if I got a $50 gift card (total), or permission to waste money on video games, and skip the candy/toothpaste/candy/pens/ties. I mean, I appreciate the gifts, but I already feel loved even without them.) Some people feel loved when you Do Things For Them, others feel loved when you simply spend time with them. Some feel most loved when you touch them. None of these things are BAD (or make us feel less loved), but I know all of us can think of someone that would rather spend a holiday cuddling on the sofa or in bed rather than getting a new car or going on a skiing trip. I know people who love getting things, and like to do stuff themselves, while others don't want more stuff but would love to have you come and visit, even if all you do is sit around and play Scrabble.
Sadly I can't remember what book it was in that I read this, but at the time it was tremendously informative as to why my mom and I generally are perfectly happy to send each other money, or even skip that entirely, whereas my in-laws are all "CHRISTMAAAAAS!"
Think carefully about what it is that makes you feel most loved, what you wish your significant other could do to make you happiest at any given time. If your girlfriend, boyfriend, wife, or lover doesn't know what it is, you'll probably be happier if you talk with them frankly about it. Things like, "Yeah, an Xbox would be neat, but I'd rather have sex", or "you don't need to buy me chocolate or jewelery, I'd rather see a spotless kitchen counter every morning". Find out also what your significant lover most appreciates, and find a way to deliver that when you want them to feel loved.
Re:I read slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the person.
I don't know what "gandhi_2" looks like, how old he (I'm assuming it's a he) is, how much money he has, or what kind of personality he has. But while it's probably true he could find someone if he really wanted to, that someone might not be someone he really wants to bother with. If he doesn't have the attributes to attract a female that's up to his standard, then he either has to lower his standards, or go without. He could be choosing to go without. Seriously, if the only kind of woman that was interested in you was a nasty, ugly fat women missing teeth with serious B.O., would you bother to go find one of those, or would you sit at home and try to find a way to be a happy single man? I'd choose the latter.
Now, you might say something like "he should work on himself then, so that he's more attractive to better-quality women". That may or may not be possible. Maybe he's cursed with extremely ugly looks, perhaps from a birth defect, or is seriously obese and it's not coming off no matter how much he exercises (there's a theory now that obesity can be caused by a virus). Maybe he has a personality that doesn't attract women; perhaps he's slightly autistic and socially retarded. There's only so much people like that can do, but women aren't really interested in guys with weird personality defects, even if it isn't their fault. Or, he might simply be old. Unless you're a millionaire, or one of the guys who somehow stays really attractive when he's 60, older men can't really attract attractive women.
In my experience (I'm 36, and luckily married), as you get older, the pool of available women dries up pretty quickly. They usually get hooked up pretty early (high school or college), and after that's it's all downhill. After about 30, the only women who are available are 1) divorced, 2) widowed (rare), 3) never married. Many of them now have kids by other men, so the older the woman, the more likely she is to have kids, which means that's a giant complication and factor for you, a prospective boyfriend and husband, to consider. It's hard enough to find a woman you really like and get along with, but now you have to get along with her kids, who could very well have a bunch of emotional issues because their father is gone or they're shared between the two.
Now, in group 1) (divorced women), there's a higher chance the woman will have emotional issues herself: she's "damaged goods". Basically, the more bad relationships a person goes through in their life (and obviously, if they ended in break-up or divorce they weren't "good relationships"), the more psychological issues that person will have, more "baggage". This is yet another obstacle to a healthy relationship. Also important is why the previous relationship(s) ended. Is she a nut or a bitch, who drove away the other men? Or does she keep picking crappy men?
Group 2) is a little better, because at least their relationship didn't end because someone was a jerk, it ended because someone unfortunately died too early. But there could still be some emotional problems there. However, premature death (like before 40 years old) is pretty rare these days in the middle class and above, so there's not many women in this group, though there's probably tons of women in the ghetto who could claim this status, but I don't think Slashdotters are typically interested in ghetto-dwelling women whose prior husbands were gang members who got killed in gang warfare.
Group 3) isn't so hot either. If a woman isn't married (or in a LTR) by the time she's 30, then why not? If she just wanted to wait, just didn't happen to find the right guy, or concentrated too much on her important work as a scientific researcher trying to find the cure for AIDS or cancer or whatever, then you may have found a really great woman. But it's much more likely that she's not married because there's something wrong with her, and she didn't even get as far as the women in group 1), and men ran from her be