Stephanie Painter’s death was swift and painless. At 9.10pm on February 11 she bid her 121 Facebook friends goodbye with one last “poke” (mood: sorrowful), then left the virtual world peacefully with a quick click of the mouse.

“It was hard to kill the profile I’d spent so long creating, but I felt it was the only way out,” says Stephanie, 27, a PA from Fulham, West London. “Facebook was damaging my relationship with my boyfriend to such an extent that if I hadn’t done it we wouldn’t be together now.” For Painter found that what had seemed like an innocent way of reconnecting with old friends and colleagues had opened a huge can of worms.

“Within a couple of months a number of ex-partners and people that I’d had random flings with were asking to be my “friend” in Facebook. I didn’t feel I could decline them and I admit I was intrigued by what they were up to,” she says. “But not only did that ignite unwanted feelings in me, it also made my boyfriend Danny, a 28-year-old TV producer, incredibly insecure. As one of my friends, he could view my profile page, my friends’ list and my ‘wall’ (an area on which messages are posted).

“Reading my ex’s flirty messages, however innocent, made him insanely jealous. He hated the fact that I was in touch with men I’d once slept with and that some of them had posted up old pictures of us together which I had no power to remove. In the end, Facebook was causing so many arguments between us that I decided the best thing would be to log off. As soon as my Facebook profile died, our relationship improved.”

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