Chapter 1. Unfriending and Becoming Unfriended on Facebook

“If You Disagree, Unfriend Me Now”: Exploring the Phenomenon of Invited Unfriending

“…Relational ties can be severed either abruptly and dramatically or through a protracted process of simply growing apart [44]. Second, whereas initiation is bilateral, requiring the consent and involvement of both parties, dissolution can be enacted unilaterally, even without the permission of the one being unfriended [6,19].…”

“…On one hand, the simplicity of making connections, combined with the low level of commitment required to maintain them, might encourage individuals to continuously expand, rather than prune, their networks, given that these connections can be valuable sources of social capital [17,18,29,31,37]. On the other hand, Gashi and Knautz suggested that unfriending online connections is growing increasingly common [19]. This may attributable to the fact that the vast majority of these affiliations are what Granovetter referred to as weak ties [20].…”

“…Indeed, the median number of Facebook friends per user is 342, yet users perceive that fewer than 7% of their Facebook friends are "true friendships" [11]. Research has demonstrated that users are especially willing to cut these weaker ties [19,28,42].…”

“…Unfriending is the "conscious act by one person to end [a] dyadic relationship" [42]. Although such dissolution occurs in both mediated and non-mediated contexts, this term is most widely applied to the disaffiliative behavior enacted by users on social networking sites (SNS) [9,42,43] Active unfriending occurs when the connection is severed by the individual who wants to disaffiliate, such as when one Facebook user intentionally ends his or her Facebook friendship with another [19]. In contrast, we define invited unfriending as a message petitioning those who differ from the poster on some outcome to sever the relationship themselves.…”

“…Regarding the practice of unfriending in the SNS context, empirical research has focused only on active unfriending, documenting its frequency, the characteristics of the ties most likely to be severed, and the cognitive and emotional responses to being unfriended [8,9,19,34,42]. For instance, Sibona and Walczak identified four common types of online behavior causing users to actively unfriend someone: too frequent or unimportant posts, discussion of polarizing topics (e.g., politics or religion), discussion of inappropriate topics (e.g., racism, sexism), or mundane posts about everyday life (e.g., about one's children, spouse, eating habits) [43].…”