Divorces have been associated, by different researchers, with online social networks. Specifically, Facebook has been blamed by different researches to have triggered the divorce of numerous couples. In fact, some researchers went so far as to claim that 33% divorces in UK and 20% in US are caused by Facebook.
Now, Facebook may be causing divorces in yet another, but quite different way. And the fresh blame is being pinned on Facebook’s going public. When Facebook went public a few days ago, it received a valuation of hefty billions, making 850 millionaires in the process!
600 of these new millionaires are Facebook employees. However, some people are quite skeptical of this quick recipe and suspect that such quick money may cause a lot of divorces in the coming days.
According to a family lawyer based in Palo Alto, Steve Cone, after some other tech giants went public, such as Cisco and Google, this triggered a lot of splits and that “I expect a similar wave shortly after Facebook goes public.”
Researchers have for long tried to establish a link between better economic circumstances and higher rate of divorces. Whereas there is no definite relationship between the two, many argue that couples start considering the option of divorce when they are well off since they really can afford to do so.
A quick buck also has its implications. According to a Nobel-Prize winning economist Dr. Gary Becker, such marries couples “who make more money than they ever expected are vulnerable to divorce [because] they realize that they are less financially dependent on each other and that they might have chosen different spouses if they had more choices at the time.”
However, a lot of other experts believe the very contrary, asserting that the influx of money rather restrengthens marriage by improving economic circumstances which tend to cause less dissent between two partners.
According to a Divorce Attorney, Robert S. Cohen, “Money solves a lot of problems. People with windfalls can get rid of the nagging issues that they have. They can afford a marriage therapist. They can do all sorts of things to make their lives better, like get a bigger house where they don’t have to share a bathroom.”
Naturally, what remains to be seen is that whether the Facebook IPO will make the married life of its new millionaires more fruitful or lot more complex, like the relationship statuses on the social network.
Source: Huff Post
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In fact, some researchers went so far as to claim that 33% divorces in UK and 20% in US are caused by Facebook.