Can Facebook Predict The Start Of A Relationship?

Facebook

By looking at data on interactions between two people, Facebook can predict when a relationship is about to start.

Researchers analysed the number of posts made before and after a couple listed themselves as “in a relationship” on the site.

Their data showed that during the 100 days before a relationship starts, there is a “slow but steady” increase in timeline posts between the couple-to-be.

The peak comes 12 days before the start of the relationship, with 1.67 posts shared per day.

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However as soon as the couple are listed in a relationship, the number of interactions between the two begins to decrease.

The fall is probably due to more real-life interactions, or using alternative and more private methods of communication like phone calls and texting.

However researchers say the drop-off is nothing to worry about – they found that the general positivity of timeline posts increases after a relationship begins.

Facebook counted the “proportion of words expressing positive emotions (like “love”, “nice”, “happy”, etc) minus the proportion of words expressing negative ones”.

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This data is based on 460,000 couples and 18m timeline posts.

The study was created by analysing a sample of anonymised, aggregated Timeline posts of people who declared an anniversary between April 2010 and October 2013 and were “single” 100 days before, and “in a relationship” 100 days after their anniversary.