A couple of studies from the University of Colorado Denver has revealed new insight into the most common kind of ‘friend’ who is unfriended on one of the most popular social networks around, Facebook, as well as the unfriended person’s emotional response to such a situation. The possibility is extremely high that the unfriended person is no more than a high school acquaintance. Do you find the result of this study to be true in your experience?

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According to Christopher Sibona, who is a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the CU Denver Business School, shared, “The most common reason for unfriending someone from high school is that the person posted polarizing comments often about religion or politics. The other big reason for unfriending was frequent, uninteresting posts.”

Other than high school acquaintances, the other people who respondents in the research unfriended include “other”, friend of a friend, work friends, or a common interest friend. As for the responses of those who were unfriended, the four most common ones were “I was surprised”, “It bothered me”, “I was amused”, and “I felt sad”.

Hey, no (wo)man is an island, so to lose your friends on Facebook is a big deal to some, although at the end of the day, it is the real world relationships that matter a whole lot more, including how others know how much you care for them, as they are grateful for your presence and company instead of whether you lead an exciting life that is an endless stream of Facebook updates.

Filed in . Read more about Facebook.