Frequent facebookers more likely to lose friends

| 07/10/2010

 (Telegraph): People who devote the most hours to Facebook are more likely to be "defriended" on the social networking site.  Researchers found that friends’ frequent posts about nothing in particular were most likely to lead to a severing of online ties. This was followed by comments about polarising topics like religion and politics. Computer scientist Christopher Sibona, who surveyed more than 1,500 Facebook users to get to the bottom of the new phenomenon of ‘unfriending’, said: "The 100th post about your favourite band is no longer interesting."  He added: "They say not to talk about religion or politics at office parties and the same thing is true online."  Inappropriate posts such as crude or racist comments were the third reason for the severing of relationships.

The study also showed 57 percent of those surveyed unfriended for online reasons while 26.9 percent did so for offline behaviour.  Sibona, a PhD student at Colorado University, observed a sort of online hierarchy of dominant and subordinate relationships.
 

 

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