In the age of online social networking, our personal lives have become increasingly more transparent to the outside world—whether we like it or not.

On Facebook, the friend feed, the ever-expanding thread outlining your friends’ online activities, allows us to keep tabs on everyone we know with minimal effort. If someone enters into a relationship with someone, the feed immediately informs you (and oftentimes, reveals the beau’s name in the process); if someone exits one, it highlights it with a shattered heart icon.

With this level of transparency, however, comes a host of new social problems, including the feeling of public humiliation for those on the receiving end of a swift boot out the door.

Edward Richardson was one such individual, and the anger he felt when his wife changed her status to ‘single’ drove him to murder.

Thanks to his homicidal rage, Richardson has been convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, a well-deserved punishment for committing an unspeakable act of violence over something so incredibly trivial.

Facebook is for recreational purposes; for seeing funny pictures of drunk friends doing dumb things. Don’t take it seriously.

[Via Gizmodo]