Unfriendly Conditions

Trivial, frequent Facebook posts invite unfriending, but so do polarizing political and religious ones.

Have you ever been unfriended? Chances are, you have either unfriended a Facebook contact or been ufriended yourself. With last year’s announcement that “unfriend” has entered the lexicon, this interpersonal dynamic has certainly affected countless Facebook users. What is most likely to get a person unfriended and why? In an innovative new study, Chris Sibona, a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado Denver Business School, reveals what the most common reasons are for unfriending.

Sibona was inspired to examine the dynamics of unfriending when his wife experienced it firsthand.

“My wife commented on a high school friend's political post,” he tells demodirt.com. “Her post was not particularly pointed or ideological—she believes she said she disagreed with the poster.”

To her surprise, a couple of days later Sibona’s wife noticed that that the "friend" had unfriended her.  

“She was not particularly close to this person but did not believe that her comment would lead to an unfriending,” Sibona says. “After that experience I wondered who was unfriending whom and why.”

There are four common reasons for why people unfriend others for their online posting behavior, he found.

The most common reason cited by those who have unfriended someone is that the friend in question posted frequent and unimportant posts, followed by polarizing posts involving politics and religion, then inappropriate posts that involved sexist or racist comments, or were too sexually suggestive or negative. Finally, “every day life posts” that described one’s eating and/or exercise habits, child, spouse, and so on also invited unfriending.

However, decisions to unfriend are made for both offline and online reasons, Sibona notes.

More than half (57.0 percent) of the survey respondents said they unfriended someone for online reasons versus 26.9 percent for offline reasons, with the remaining respondents indicating that they are “not sure.”   

Sibona also examined the effects of the length of the friendship and how often the friend was seen in the last year, how many friends they have in common, age, gender, education, years in social networks and whether the person lives in the U.S.

“Two of the constructs—frequent/unimportant and inappropriate posts showed no effects for the covariates,” he explains. “[There were] no age differences, gender differences, [and so forth].”

Seeing each other frequently seemed to counteract any negative effects of potentially polarizing posts, the results suggest.    

“The more often the dyad saw each other in the last year the less likely the survey respondent would agree that the person they unfriended posted about polarizing topics compared to who saw each other less often,” Sibona explains.

Also, the longer two people have been friends, the less likely respondents would report that the other person was posting about unimportant topics.

The most unexpected finding, Sibona says, was that banality seemed a greater offense than politically or religiously controversial posts.   

“I was somewhat surprised that polarizing topics was the second most common reason for unfriending—for online behavior,” he states. “When people typically complain about other people's online posting behavior they say things like, ‘I don't need to know what you ate for breakfast.’ That is, they complain about the banal things that someone posts.”

However, Sibona adds, only eight percent of respondents complained that the person they unfriended posted about their eating habits, while about a quarter (26 percent) of people overall agreed or strongly agreed that the person they unfriended posted too often about their political beliefs.

Relative to other topics, he notes, “People do not seem to complain much about these everyday life posts.”

The takeaway message of the study, Sibona maintains, is that just as in face-to-face interactions, some topics—like politics and religion—should be avoided, at least if one wants to avoid being unfriended.

Often, people do not realize how their friends will interpret their posts.

“People need to think about how others will receive their message,” he maintains. “Very few people—0.4 percent—agreed or strongly agreed that they themselves posted racist statements on Facebook but 8.2 percent of people said that the person they unfriended posted a racist statements. So people should be aware that other people may interpret something you post differently than you expect.”   

Finally, some people just want Facebook to be fun. “Several people say that posters should focus on providing ‘entertaining’ or ‘interesting’ content,” Sibona concludes.