It's no secret that social media, email, and other types of technology can have a significant impact on relationships. According to one study, people who used Facebook more than once an hour were more likely to get into disputes with their significant others that could lead to them breaking up. Technology can also have a major impact on a divorce, resulting in the loss of assets and child custody. Here are two tips for reducing the impact technology has on your impending separation from your spouse.

Unfriend Everyone

It goes without saying that you should stop using social media, and even delete your profiles altogether, as soon as you realize you want to get a divorce. However, social media is such an integrated part of life, this may not be desirable or possible.

As an alternative, remove your soon-to-be ex-spouse from your friends list on your social media accounts. Anything that's said on social media can be used against you in divorce court. For example, your ex can use an update you make about getting a promotion to show you don't need additional spousal support.

However, it's not just your ex you should unfriend. Mutual friends, members of your ex's family, and anyone you feel may be more sympathetic to your ex than you should also be cut off. Even if you set your profile to private—which you should do until your divorce is finalized—these people can still relay information to your spouse that can be used against you in court. If you don't want to remove people for fear of offending them, create a new profile, lock down your privacy settings, and only invite people you trust to view your page.

Also, be wary of accepting any new friend requests from people you don't know. It's not unheard of for attorneys to go undercover online to get around privacy walls and gain access to litigants' social media postings.

Review Your Hard Drive

The hard drive on your computer can be a treasure trove of incriminating information for your ex's divorce attorney. If you share a computer with your spouse, then you may want to review any information you have saved on the hard drive and either move the data to a more secure location or remove it altogether.

However, it's not enough to just delete the data from the drive. Many people don't realize that deleting a file only cuts the connection to that file, not the file itself. Eventually the computer will overwrite the file with new information, but some or all the information may still be recoverable using a variety of forensic tools. To completely erase deleted files from a computer, you'll need to use a specially designed utility that will essentially overwrite the file multiple times until it's illegible. You can find a list of these utilities to use online.

Technology is a sword that can cut both ways in a divorce. For more tips on reducing the impact tech has on your separation, contact a divorce attorney, like those at Cragun Law Firm.