Its Ovr: Breaking Up by Text Message

We’ve all witnessed relationship drama among our friends played out in the public sphere, whether it’s a sudden relationship status change on Facebook or an IM conversation where he tells you that he’s, like, just not that into you.

If any of the above sounds like your life, then chances are you’re following what’s unfolding between R&B singer Chris Brown and his Grammy-winning girlfriend Rihanna. According to news reports, the assault he’s charged with started over a text message he received from a former lover.

Instead of a phone call as the ultimate in relationship-ending callousness, breakups over text message are de rigueur among Gen X and Yers. Britney Spears supposedly dumped underemployed husband Kevin Federline by sending him a text saying she wanted a divorce, winning him the clever nickname upgrade to FedEx from K-Fed (not that Ms. Spears’s patterns of behavior during the months that followed could be considered normal for the average Millennial). Country singer and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood also unceremoniously dumped her beau, actor Chace Crawford, via text message, and then nonchalantly told a television reporter about it, saying, “It’s, like, peace out.”

A British survey of more than 2,000 people found that one in seven had been dumped by SMS or email.

In my own experience, Facebook relationship drama has abounded. One friend became hysterical when her boyfriend’s friends jokingly hacked into his account and changed his relationship status to “single” — she thought he was breaking up with her via News Feed. Another changed her status from “engaged” to “single,” a public action for a person with 200 friends that spurred an outpouring of concerned comments.

Breakups over text or IM aren’t necessarily a new trend, but they are an indication of where teens and tweens interact most comfortably, says Anastasia Goodstein, editor of the youth media and marketing site Ypulse.

“They’re using technology to handle difficult situations or interactions that probably should be done face to face,” she says. “That’s how they are communicating with each other. You’re going to see it played out in Facebook status. You’re going to see their relationships, like their friendships, played out through these different tools they are using to stay connected to each other 24-7.”

Ms. Goodstein adds that most teens will say they wouldn’t end a relationship via text, or air dirty laundry over a social-networking site — and a Harris Interactive poll found that two-thirds of teens surveyed said they wouldn’t dump someone using modern technology. But many do, because these are the most common ways they keep in touch.

Deciding when and how technology is appropriate in dealing with relationships is a new hurdle, and one that lots of young people will face. “The challenge of the things that get lost in digital communication is that it’s hard to know if someone is being sarcastic, so you don’t get the whole story when you’re limited by how many characters you can use,” Ms. Goodstein says. “This younger generation is sort of having to figure out when to hang it up, and when to really do the face-to-face communication.”