According to a new survey, roughly one in seven say they’ve been dumped by a boyfriend or girlfriend via text message or e-mail. I guess Kevin Federline isn’t alone.

Here is a look at the survey:

“Most of us send emails and texts everyday, so it comes as no surprise they are now being used to ditch someone — however distasteful this is,” said Rob Barnes from moneysupermarket.com, which carried out the survey.

“The results show one per cent of the population would use a social networking site to dump a partner. It would be interesting to see how this changes as sites such as Facebook and MySpace become more apparent in our everyday lives.”

The survey included 2,194 people in the United Kingdom between the ages of 18-24.

A more surprising finding, though, was that almost 25% of those surveyed have used the traditional pen and paper “Dear John” or “Dear Jane” letter to call it quits.

This is just another sign of how pervasive text messaging is in the lives of younger people.

What do you think? Have you used a text message or e-mail to break up with someone? Or, worse, have you been dumped this way?

To commemorate the event, they’ve produced a Flash timeline that illustrates the evolution of AIM from 1989 to today.

In 1989 AOL introduced consumer instant messaging (IM), pioneering a trend that would change the face of online communications. In addition to email, consumers can now send and receive real time text communications, previously available only on private networks.

In 1996 the AOL Buddy List feature launched on the AOL 3.0 service. This AOL innovation revolutionized IM by letting AOL members organize their “buddies” and see who was online and able to receive messages, jump-starting America’s most powerful online community. While aspects of the feature have been copied by others, AOL’s Buddy List network supports the nation’s largest IM community.

It’s amazing to think how far technology has come in the past 10+ years. I’ve never been an AOL Internet client but I’ve been using the AOL Instant Messaging service for a long time. I still use it now along with Skype, and Google Talk.

If you’d like to IM with me sometime, contact me and I’ll give you my AOL IM, Skype or Google Talk screen names.