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Can Facebook predict the end of your relationship?

So this is sort of horrifying. While looking for a formula to predict which users were in a relationship (no idea why, probably marketing), researchers at Facebook and Cornell University realized the formula could also predict when a couple would break up.Oh great. Please don't add that to our timelines, okay Zuckerberg? Taking a dataset of 1.3 million users who'd self-identified as being in a rel
Can Facebook Predict the End of Your Relationship?
Can Facebook Predict the End of Your Relationship?Alex Belomlinsky/Getty Images / Today

So this is sort of horrifying. While looking for a formula to predict which users were in a relationship (no idea why, probably marketing), researchers at Facebook and Cornell University realized the formula could also predict when a couple would break up.

Oh great. Please don't add that to our timelines, okay Zuckerberg?

Taking a dataset of 1.3 million users who'd self-identified as being in a relationship, a computer scientist at Cornell and an engineer at Facebook came up with a formula that looks at social circles and friend overlap to determine who is in a relationship together. If the formula guessed incorrectly, the researchers were able to identify that those relationships were more likely to end in the next five months.  

For the first time ever, we're glad our significant other is not a Facebook user.

Tanya Edwards is a contributing writer for iVillage. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.

A version of this story originally appeared on iVillage.