Why Do We Unfriend On Facebook? The Reasons Might Surprise You!

Last month, Misty wrote an article that asked the question, “What will make you unfollow on Twitter?” The answers were fun to read. A lot of people said it’s the auto DMs that make them unfollow, others said it’s the spam, and yet others cited reasons that I’ve never even thought of before. It’s all very interesting to me.

Let’s switch gears over to Facebook now. What will make you unfriend someone? Although I’m a Twitter addict, I’m relatively new to Facebook. I joined Facebook six months ago, so I’m still getting used to it all. I haven’t ever unfriended anyone. Is it too many updates? Is it too few updates? I suppose there could be many reasons for unfriending someone.

The University of Colorado Denver Business School recently conducted some pretty intense research with very interesting conclusions. They found that the number one reason why people get unfriended on Facebook is because they send too many useless posts. Also in the top reasons for Facebook unfriending are posts about politics, religion and race. The research also found that it is usually the person that originally made the friend request that gets dumped.

There is also more research being done at the school about how we make friends online. They are looking at it as a whole cycle from beginning (adding on Facebook, following on Twitter) to end (unfriending on Facebook, unfollowing on Twitter) and how those relationships are different from our regular face-to-face friendships we encounter each day. The results of that research will be published in January.