Analyzing language on Reddit, we tracked people’s social, cognitive, and emotional lives as they dealt with the breakup of a close intimate relationship; impending relationship breakups can be detected up to 3 months before they occur

Language left behind on social media exposes the emotional and cognitive costs of a romantic breakup. Sarah Seraj,  Kate G. Blackburn, James W. Pennebaker. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 16, 2021 118 (7) e2017154118; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2017154118

Significance: By analyzing language on the social media platform Reddit, we tracked people’s social, cognitive, and emotional lives as they dealt with the breakup of a close intimate relationship. Language markers can detect impending relationship breakups up to 3 mo before they occur, with continued psychological aftereffects lasting 6 mo after the breakup. Because the language shifts are also apparent in subreddits (forums) unrelated to relationships, the research points to the pervasive impact personal upheavals have across people’s social worlds. Comparable cognitive and social effects are apparent among people undergoing divorce or dealing with major life secrets. The analysis of subtle shifts in pronouns, articles, and other almost-invisible words can reveal the psychological effects of life experiences.

Abstract: Using archived social media data, the language signatures of people going through breakups were mapped. Text analyses were conducted on 1,027,541 posts from 6,803 Reddit users who had posted about their breakups. The posts include users’ Reddit history in the 2 y surrounding their breakups across the various domains of their life, not just posts pertaining to their relationship. Language markers of an impending breakup were evident 3 mo before the event, peaking on the week of the breakup and returning to baseline 6 mo later. Signs included an increase in I-words, we-words, and cognitive processing words (characteristic of depression, collective focus, and the meaning-making process, respectively) and drops in analytic thinking (indicating more personal and informal language). The patterns held even when people were posting to groups unrelated to breakups and other relationship topics. People who posted about their breakup for longer time periods were less well-adjusted a year after their breakup compared to short-term posters. The language patterns seen for breakups replicated for users going through divorce (n = 5,144; 1,109,867 posts) or other types of upheavals (n = 51,357; 11,081,882 posts). The cognitive underpinnings of emotional upheavals are discussed using language as a lens.

Discussion

Breaking up is a complicated social and cognitive process that can last many months. The results suggest a natural evolution in the language people use before, during, and after a breakup.

Before the breakup, we see people’s natural thinking patterns on display, but the breakup disrupts this cognitive equilibrium. In fact, even before the actual breakup, analytic thinking drops as people talk about their relationship in a personal and informal manner. One explanation may be that people can sense the end of the relationship. This prebreakup phase reveals a disruption to people’s normal thinking patterns starting almost 3 mo before the breakup.

A second cognitive process is activated when the breakup occurs. As people make decisions about their new lives, their language spikes in the use of cognitive processing words. Finally, as the story becomes more developed and organized, analytic thinking increases again. The fluctuation in analytic and cognitive processing words reveals two dynamic cognitive mechanisms that unfold over the course of a breakup. Indeed, in many ways, these two cognitive processes may be tied to the way we encode experiences and map them into memories. We can see people’s thought process through their word use before a breakup even takes place. Additionally, tracking what happens during the moment of the breakup gives access to the ways people are trying to explain to themselves and others why the breakup occurred.

As seen in the post hoc analyses, those who write about their breakups more frequently are slower to return to their prebreakup language patterns. One explanation is simply that people who need to write continually may have experienced more disruptive or traumatic breakups. Alternatively, writing about the same events repeatedly may be a form of rumination whereby people are reliving the same distressing events over and over. In fact, expressive writing studies have found that people who write about emotional upheavals in similar ways on multiple occasions often do not show as many health benefits compared to those who update their narrative over time (47). By repeatedly recalling the same experience over several months, those who continue to relive the same painful memories might benefit from an alternative coping strategy, such as seeking clinical intervention.

Using language analysis tools, social scientists can now track social shifts in human connections in near-real time. Within hours of people revealing their broken hearts, it is possible to detect how they are communicating with other parts of their social networks about their hobbies, jobs, or religion. Communities such as Reddit provide a laboratory for researchers to measure how different coping strategies can potentially work. One contribution of the current research is that it points to the power of analyzing social media data to understand the unfolding dynamics of interpersonal processes.