Many of us have been through the traumatic experience that is the modern-day break up. This process has become more complex through the years with the introduction and growing popularity of social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Before this new feature rolled out you had plenty of tools at your fingertips to check up on your ex and see what they were doing at any given moment. Some people might think that they would never check up on a previous partner after a breakup, "It's in the past," as they say, but others aren't as strong-willed. However, if someone happens to be more anxiously attached to their partner in the relationship, it is even more likely that they will turn to their ex's social media pages to fill the gap that the relationship left. Facebook listened to the complaints of its users about the emotional turmoil of seeing an ex's smiling face pop up in your newsfeed and decided to do something about it.

Kelly Winters, product manager for Facebook, took to the company's community support blog to address these concerns with a solution.

Facebook is a place for sharing life’s important moments, which for many people include their romantic relationships. When a relationship ends, we’ve heard from people that they sometimes have questions about the options available to them on Facebook.
Starting today, we are testing tools to help people manage how they interact with their former partners on Facebook after a relationship has ended. When people change their relationship status to indicate they are no longer in a relationship, they will be prompted to try these tools.

Essentially, this new tool can do three things: first, the ex in question won't show up in the user's newsfeed or pop up in the suggestions box when tagging photos. Not only will the former partner show up less in the user's newsfeed, the user can limit how much they will show up in the other's newsfeed as well. Thirdly, the user is able to change who can see all posts they share with their former partner, as well as untag themselves from all of their ex's photos in one go.

Some comments appear to be intrigued by the potential this new tool offers, however, some ridicule the idea:

"It gets better, you can set the option up for a time frame that is suitable for you and your heart. Which makes this even better for the people that publicly break up once a month.... Facebook is always there when no one else is" -Facebook User Kayla Mae

"Then there should be "crazy ex alternate reality mode" which automatically scans ex's compatible friends and suggests who they *might* be seeing, and what they *might* be doing; let Facebook take the hard work out of paranoia." -Facebook User Laurei Australi

"all of this is for the lazy: apart from unfriending or blocking, facebbok has been having privacy settings that allow you to stop seeing s.o content, or that allow you to not show your contents to some selected people." -DailyMail User mewisely

Biases aside, it is true that most of this was possible before Facebook decided to roll out this new tool, however, some of the offered privacy settings can be a pain to figure out or get to, especially if the goal is to just see or hear from one specific person less. As the internet has proven time and time again, it is impossible to please everyone, but at the very least, Facebook is here to please those who want to remain amicable with past partners, but see less of them until their tender heart has healed.