Top Reason for Facebook Unfriending Is Too Many Useless Posts 300
alphadogg writes "The No. 1 reason why friends dump friends on Facebook is when they get fed up seeing too many useless posts, according to new research out of the University of Colorado Denver Business School. Posts about polarizing subjects such as politics and religion as well as inappropriate and racist comments also sever many Facebook relationships, according to Christopher Sibona, a PhD student in the Computer and Science and Information Systems program. 'Researchers spend a lot of time examining how people form friendships online but little is known on how those relationships end,' said Sibona, whose research will be published in January by the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. 'Perhaps this will help us develop a theory of the entire cycle of friending and unfriending.' Sibona surveyed more than 1,500 Facebook users to get to the bottom of why people dump each other. Not surprisingly, people who flood others with posts are at great risk of being unfriended. 'The 100th post about your favorite band is no longer interesting,' he said." Samzenpus likes this.
100th my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
'The 100th post about your favorite band is no longer interesting,' he said."
The first post wasn't interesting. It just took 100 for it to reach the point of "I'd rather not see anything from you at all."
Re:Still friends? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just click the little X in the corner of their useless status update. This hides everything they say/do without them feeling virtually offended. Win!
If By "Useless" You Mean... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't "stimulating debate" they find offensive. It's pointless, irrational ranting. How many times do you need to be told "[Glen Beck | Obama] is a turd" even if you agree?
someone is studying this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone spent the time to determine that if you are a polarizing inappropriate racist you won't have many friends?
This is why I don't get Twitter (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I don't get Twitter. There, uselessness of the post is not only encouraged, but also enforced by post length limitations, and by the lack of relevance-filtered feed. It's pretty much white noise.
Re:If By "Useless" You Mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Dislike button... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:2, Insightful)
There really are some adorable videos of my nephew stumbling through the ABC's and talking about Lady Gaga, and I do love a good political/philosophical discussion, but ten posts daily on "What [religious zealot] says about Christian relationships" aren't exactly stimulating debate. In fact, I find that facebook stifles interesting conversation in favor of movie quotes/song lyrics/dumb quips/travel plans. That said, there are about three or four now-distant friends that I keep in contact with very tenuously via facebook. For me, that's the foot in the door that keeps me checking it daily, if only for lack of something better to do.
Thanks for the wake-up call. I'm going to the library.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:3, Insightful)
...Barack Hussein Obama is an al-Qaeda robot sent back from the future to terminate American liberties and ensure the rise of the Kenyan cyber-hegemony...
Wait! Is the Sarah Connor Chronicles coming back for a third season?!?
Re:What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:4, Insightful)
what exactly are the middle ground topics that keep 500M people addicted to FB?
Who's sleeping with whom.
Re:Still friends? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't feel the need to protect their feelings; I am like this with family as well, online or in person. If they can't keep it straight, I do it for them and it gives them a bit of feedback that people might just be fed up with their shit. I ESPECIALLY do this if I hear "tealiban", "demoncrat", "teabagger" or any other term meant to polarize politically/socially whether I support their view or not.
Re:This is why I don't get Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously you don't get Twitter, because you should follow things that interest you and aren't noise. Now it's very likely that people you friend on Facebook are friended because they are actual real life friends or family. I don't have a social obligation to follow my family on Twitter, but I can subscribe to accounts that I feel are not noise, and remove ones that are. If you're following noise on Twitter (or Facebook, really) it's your own damn fault.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If By "Useless" You Mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoops, saw that you mentioned "Hide". But why would you unfriend someone for their apps if you don't see them at all?
Some people make regular posts about items they need in their favorite games in their regular status updates too, which you see even if you've hidden their apps.
You could hide their status updates or unfriend them. Since you'll no longer be seeing anything from them either way, it comes down to whether you want them to see your activity even if you no longer care for theirs.
Re:What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:3, Insightful)
If stimulating debate over politics and religion are too "polarizing" (takes too much thinking?) and some topics are too banal, what exactly are the middle ground topics that keep 500M people addicted to FB?
Themselves.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, I'll try to have a reasonable debate, if the opinion is being expressed by someone I like and respect. But all too often it just turns into a pointless shouting match.
Slashdotters love to complain about the low quality of debate here, but honestly, in comparison to most of the rest of the internet, the tone here looks like a model of formal rhetoric. Facebook ... not so much.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:4, Insightful)
I like having friends who have different political and religious beliefs from mine. It keeps my on my toes, makes me examine my own beliefs, and can provide hours of entertaining conversation. But I do not enjoy being shouted at by crazy people. A big part of having an online life is learning when things have gone over that line.
Babies (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If By "Useless" You Mean... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:3, Insightful)
The most useless (Score:5, Insightful)
... posts are those stupid likey-link-farm "likes". You can't comment on them, and you can't hide them unless you hide everything that your "friend" posts.
I thought that useless posts were the whole point. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:1, Insightful)
I want to unfriend my Mom for the 3-5 biblical quotations a day. Posting anonymously just in case...
Re:100th my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about those who refuse to join? (Score:4, Insightful)
-Henry David Thoreau, Life Without Principle, 1863
Replace "newspaper" with "blog" and "post-office" with "facebook" and it applies perfectly today.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:3, Insightful)
If you could reason with crazy people, there would be no crazy people.
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:5, Insightful)
minor "offenses". Like disliking having a mosque near Ground Zero
Religious bigotry is no minor offense.
Re:100th my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
I dropped my Facebook account last month.
Facebook is teh suck.
Most of the people I "friended" were high school classmates who live in a different state and I haven't seen in decades.
Maybe I am sort of cold (my wife calls me "Dexter") but I really don't care to see a constant stream of medical drama and pictures of people's inbred rodent children.
(LOL@rodent)
Re:100th my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Ditto. I wonder if these unfrienders don't know how to block (lol), or if they are so offended that blocking isn't enough (lol).