Divorce-online.co.uk, a British-based website that provides resources for couples seeking a divorce, studied 5,000 divorce papers filed in the U.S. In 989 cases, or 20 percent of the filings, the study found the word "Facebook" as mentioned in reasons for the separation request.
Mark Keenan, who conducted the research for Divorce-online, told Britain's The Sun, "The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to."
The study also found mentions of activity on the networking sites Twitter and Myspace as grounds for divorce.
Divorce-online does not say if Facebook usage has led to more divorce, or if it just happens to be a new option for spouses who would have cheated anyway.
The Sun also reports that divorce lawyers in the United States admit to searching sites like Facebook, looking for evidence of infidelity to build cases for their clients.
