London, Aug 2 (IANS): Around 90 of lovers spy on photos and status messages of their former boyfriends or girlfriends on popular social networking website Facebook, a study has found.

According to a Master's thesis written by 25-year-old Veronika Lukacs, a student at University of Western Ontario in Canada, 88 percent of people checked out friends' accounts to spy on the person who dumped them, the Daily Mail reported.

Jilted lovers deleted photos that reminded them of happier times, read long-forgotten wall posts and scrutinised their potential replacement.

Lukacs, whose thesis is titled "It's Complicated: Romantic breakups and their aftermath on Facebook", said her analysis proves that breakups have serious social implications.

"Nearly everyone is participating in these behaviours, it's very very common," she said.

She also found that 48 percent of people remain Facebook friends with their ex after they break up and 74 percent also tried to check out their former lover's new flame.

Of those who were no longer Facebook friends, 70 percent said they used a mutual friend's profile to check on their ex.

"It's a much more serious issue than a lot of people think," Lukacs said.

As part of her study, Lukacs surveyed 107 people over 18 years who had a broken relationship in their previous 12 months. Three-quarters of them attended her university.