People who spend the most hours on Facebook are the most likely to be “defriended” on the social networking site, according to new research.
Researchers from Colorado University found that friends’ frequent posts about nothing in particular were most likely to lead to a severing of online ties. This was followed by comments about polarising topics like religion and politics.
Computer scientist Christopher Sibona, who surveyed more than 1,500 Facebook users on Twitter to get to the bottom of the new phenomenon of ‘unfriending’, said: “The 100th post about your favourite band is no longer interesting.”
He added: “They say not to talk about religion or politics at office parties and the same thing is true online.”
Inappropriate posts such as crude or racist comments were the third reason for the severing of relationships.
The study also showed 57 percent of those surveyed unfriended for online reasons while 26.9 percent did so for offline behaviour.
Sibona, a PhD student at Colorado University, observed a sort of online hierarchy of dominant and subordinate relationships.
For example, those making friend requests stood a much higher chance of being abruptly unfriended. At the same time those doing the unfriending seemed to hold the upper hand in the relationship.
The notion of unfriending has become increasingly prominent in modern culture, and was chosen by the New Oxford American Dictionary as its 2009 Word of the Year.
The dictionary defines the verb ‘unfriend’ as ‘To remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in “I decided to unfriend my roommate after we had a fight”.’
Sibona said making friends on Facebook is a delicate dance with its own rules or “nettiquette” – far different from face-to-face interaction.
“There is a lot more nuance in the offline friendship world. You don’t have to go up to someone and ask them to be your friend. That’s not the case online. It can be awkward,” he said.
Steven Walczak, associate professor of Information Systems at the University of Colorado Denver Business School and Sibona’s advisor, said he hopes the study will spark further research.
“With businesses embracing Facebook as a marketing and customer-relationship tool, this will hopefully create new research that further examines how social networks enhance business decision making and outcomes,” he said.
