Breakage is worse than split ends, even though neither are good to see in the majority of your hairs. The reason I say breakage is worse, is because when a hair strand is so fragile it can't even stay together anymore, it breaks off. At least with a split end, though very damaged, your hair has enough strength left that both halves survive (even though they are split apart and still need to be cut off). It just means your hair hasn't been so damaged that it's totally falling apart. It has strength enough to still hang on, even though it's splitting apart. So your hair is most likely severly damaged if you are seeing breakage, and very damaged if you are seeing split ends.

Back in the old days, when I was relaxing my hair, my hair was so damaged that it broke off before my ends had a chance to split! My hair was filled with strands that all hung at angles. And at each angle you could see a little light spot where the hair was totally fractured beyond all hope, and they'd hang like little broken limbs. I had this nervous habit as a teenager where I'd sit and go through my hair and finish breaking off the fractured hairs one by one.

In highschool my hair was constantly breaking apart to fall down on my shoulders in little broken hair bits. When I wore a white teeshirt, all over my shoulders and back were covered in little broken hairs that constantly rained from my hair.

Now that I'm not damaging my hair anymore, I don't get any breakage (or split ends). Because of this, I don't need to trim my hair anymore., and it's grown longer than I ever thought possible.