Facebook can pinpoint the moment you fall in love

PC Tech February 17, 2014

Less than a minute

Wondering whether your ‘dating’ status is about to turn into a relationship?

Facebook may have the answer before you do.

As part of a couples-themed study undertaken by the social networking giant for Valentines Day, Facebook data scientists analyzed timeline posts between Facebook users who had entered relationships.

According to Daily Mail, study head Carlos Duik said he found that in the 100 days leading up to the day when users change their relationship status, the number of timeline posts increased significantly.

Called 'The Formation of Love', the study found that during the 100 days before a relationship starts, there is a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple. However once they get together the posts start to decrease dramatically. — Called ‘The Formation of Love’, the study found that during the 100 days before a relationship starts, there is a slow but steady increase in the number of timeline posts shared between the future couple. However once they get together the posts start to decrease dramatically.

The amount of exchanges peaked 12 days before the beginning of the relationship change, with 1.67 posts a day, according to Venture Beat.

However after that, timeline post activity decreases.

‘Presumably, couples decide to spend more time together, courtship is off, and online interactions give way to more interactions in the physical world,’ Diuk wrote in a blog post yesterday.

Diuk also analyzed how the sentiment of the timeline posts changed over time, and found positive feelings increased significantly around the day when the relationship begins.

He said that even though the number of posts exchanged between the couple decreased once they get together, the sentiment of the exchanges became ‘sweeter’.