It’s Facebook. Ladies and gents, you have to learn to know when it’s time to step away.

Checking up on your ex via the evil social network won’t do you any favors in getting over the person, according to new research.

An English study surveyed 464 participants (most of them college-aged ladies) about their Fbook usage and recovery post-breakup. Researchers confirmed what everyone from your mom to your neighbor have probably told you already: Facebook-stalking an ex more frequently leads to a higher likelihood of being “hung up on the breakup, with greater distress, negative feelings, longing for the ex-partner and lower personal growth.”

But before you hit the unfriend button, the study found another interesting discovery: the same distress was true when the couple was not Facebook friends. Abuh? This makes sense if your ex is just telling everyone about his Breaking Bad marathons, since those boring updates might actually help you recover from the breakup by reminding you why you broke up in the first place.

And as I many women have learned, the imagination can do far worse than reality if, for example, you can’t see his lame check-ins to Subway and instead visualize him eating caviar since winning the lottery, in between making babies with supermodels.

So shush your crazy imagination and stay away from your news feed, unless your former lover is totally lamesauce.

[Live Science]

Yelena Shuster is not hitting refresh over and over.

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