The Psychology of Unfriending Someone on Facebook
Have you ever unfriended someone on Facebook? Be honest. This is a safe blog post.
You meanie! How could you do such a thing? It was a high school
friend, wasn’t it? She was blathering on about the evils of affirmative
action, wasn’t she? Two new studies
from the University of Colorado Denver investigate the psychology
behind unfriending, as well as the emotional response of the unfriended.
(Both draw on a Twitter survey of 1,077 adults, so take the results
with a blue breadcrumb of skepticism: It could be that Twitter folk use
Facebook differently from other people.) The first, which probes the who
and why of unfriending, found that acquaintances from high school are
most likely to get the chop, followed by friends of friends, work
friends, and common interest friends. Study co-author Christopher Sibona
speculates in a press release that we often wish to sever online
contact with people who disagree with us about religion or politics
(long live the filter bubble).
Since we’re most likely to diverge radically in perspective from those
we knew in childhood, before we began picking our friends based on their
bumper stickers, they get purged first.
While the majority of friends get flushed for the toxicity of their
posts, IRL shenanigans put our work friends uniquely at risk. "We found
that people often unfriend co-workers for their actions in the real
world rather than anything they post on Facebook," Sibona said.
The researchers use the euphemism “context collapse” to convey the
loss of friendship. (If you too are reminded of colony collapse
disorder, with its overtones of mystery and tragedy, then let’s be
friends on Facebook.) Study two examined the emotional fallout from
context collapse as enacted over the social network and came up with
four feelings: surprised, bothered, amused, and sad. As Science Daily explains,
a quartet of factors determine how unhappy an Unfriended friend is
likely to be at her demotion. If you two once shared a close bond,
she’ll probably be upset (and annoyed, because you are setting all kinds
of records in passive aggression, Unfriender). If she monitors her
Facebook friend list closely, that also enhances the likelihood she’ll
suffer. On the other hand, talking about any relationship tensions
before cutting the cord has a mitigating effect, and if the Unfriended
seeks comfort from her remaining friends afterward—you weren’t the last
one, right?—the study suggests she’ll feel better.
What the researchers do not forthrightly state, but which I will, is
that unfriending someone is rarely warranted unless you are trying to
preserve your own mental health. As Sibona allows, “the cost of
maintaining [Facebook] friendships is pretty low. If you make a
conscious effort to push a button to get rid of someone, that can hurt.”
Why do you want to hurt people, Facebook user who takes Twitter
surveys? (Have you no loyalty? Is that why you can’t just pick a social
network?) Why must you banish your old buddies to walk amongst the
Unfriended, who must live in icy squalor like Divergent’s Factionless or the White Walkers from Game of Thrones? Be kind. Be inclusive. Be humane. Download Hate With Friends instead.
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