Face it, X-mas and spring break is break-up time too

People caught in a rocky relationship are most likely to break up around springtime or Christmas, if data from social networking site Facebook is to be believed.

David McCandless, a designer, culled information from 10,000 Facebook status updates which used the phrases 'break up' or 'broken up', and plotted them on a graph.

He discovered that a huge number of relationships ended just around 'Spring Break,' a major holiday in the US college calendar, which falls in early March.

Couples will perhaps be heartened to note that Christmas Day itself sees the fewest break-ups, reports the Daily Mail.

Monday is the most popular day for updating your Facebook status with news of a failed relationship, perhaps after a particularly bad weekend.

Valentine's Day also sees a spike in the number of love affairs that come to a sudden end.

However, there's some good news for those who have broken up. Bowing to public pressure, Facebook has stopped displaying photos of former lovers on people's pages.