Why It May Be Normal to Google Your Ex
If you think you're the only one doing it, you're wrong.
— -- Do you Google your exes?
If you said "yes", you’re not the only one.
Amy, a 31-year-old who didn’t want “GMA” to use her last name or show her face, said she’s guilty of doing it.
“It’s very hard to resist looking. If it’s out there, I want to see it,” she said. “I Google pretty much everyone -- my exes -- and if I know who they’re dating then I Google them too,” she said.
Amy admitted that she looks up her most recent ex about once a week.
“I think it’s probably a little out of control that I Google my exes. I probably should just be satisfied with the actual break-up being the closure, but I think everybody does it,” she said. “I mean it’s there. Everyone looks.”
Facilitated by websites such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, cyber-snooping has become quite common. According to a 2013 Pew Research survey, 48 percent of social networking site users between the ages of 18 and 29 have used social networking sites to check up on someone they dated in the past.
Relationship expert Stacy Kaiser said it’s normal to search occasionally for information about a former flame.
“It is healthy and normal to be curious about an ex and want to Google them,” said Kaiser, a licensed psychotherapist. “It becomes unhealthy when it’s hurting your current relationship or impacting your daily activities.”
Should people who search for exes online be worried that they’ll be found out?
Not really, said Eric Limer, associate editor of Gizmodo, a technology blog.
“It’s almost impossible to find out if anybody has been searching for you and it’s even more impossible to find out if a specific person has,” he said. “The only way that someone would find out that you’re looking at their Instagram or their Facebook page is if you slip up and accidentally like something.”
As for Amy, she said, "In the end the information is there and I'm going to look at it, and I want to know."
