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Part 1: The increasing role of technology in divorce

On behalf of Stange Law Firm, PC posted in Child Custody on Monday, July 16, 2012.

Technology and social media are increasingly playing a role in divorce. Even just this past March the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers reported that in the past five years roughly 80 percent of divorces included some aspect of social media.

Specifically, when looking at how social media is playing a role in divorce, outside of increasing the urge for infidelity and leading to a divorce, social media posts are frequently being submitted in child custody cases in order to try and call into question the other parent’s ability to care and raise children.

For example, in one case a woman was ordered by a judge to disclose her Facebook password. This was after her husband found out she had posted to the site her feelings related to not being able to care for the couple’s children. In that same case, she was also ordered to disclose passwords for her online dating profile accounts.

For the Illinois parent who is going through a divorce, what this means is to remember that even though Facebook and other social media sites may feel private, these sites are not and the information that winds up on them can end up being used either in a person’s favor — or against them — later on down the road.

However, this is just one way that the digital age is playing a role in divorce. In our next post we will focus on how it is becoming increasingly more difficult to determine how digital assets and gadgets should be divided up in a divorce.

Source: Mobiledia, “Digital Divorce: ‘Til Tech Us Do Part,” Margaret Rock, July 16, 2012

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