Facebook causes one in five divorces in US

LONDON: Flirty messages and photographs found on social networking website Facebook are now leading to at least one in five divorces in the US, a survey has revealed.

A new survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers also says around 80 percent of divorce lawyers have reported a spike in the number of cases that use social media for evidence of cheating, according to the Daily Mail.

Many cases revolve around social media users who get back in touch with ex-girlfriends and lovers they had not heard from in many years.

Facebook was by far the biggest offender, with 66 percent of lawyers citing it as the primary source of evidence in a divorce case. MySpace followed with 15 percent, Twitter at five percent and other websites together at 14 percent.

"The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to," Mark Keenan, managing director of Divorce Online, was quoted as saying.

"Desperate Housewives" actress Eva Longoria recently split from her basketball player husband Tony Parker after alleging that he kept in touch with a woman on Facebook.

Cedric Millier, who runs the Living World Christian Fellowship Church in Neptune, New Jersey, said Facebook was a "portal to infidelity" and enabled people to reconnect with former lovers, leading to rows and bitterness with spouses.

"As everyone continues to share more and more aspects of their lives on social networking sites, they leave themselves open to much greater examinations of both their public and private lives in these sensitive situations," said American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers president Marlene Eskind Moses.