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.
What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
What about those who refuse to join? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can someone tell me the major reason as to why those capable of joining Facebook refuse to join?
Disclaimer: I am one of those who refuse to join Facebook. My reason is simple: I do not see what joining this social network would do to improve my life. In fact, I believe it would simply complicate it. Am I wrong?
You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:5, Interesting)
There are people I've known for years IRL who hold bizarre beliefs I'd never suspected they held, because they don't talk about them in person, but who will happily spout off about these beliefs on FB, LJ, etc. All that religious bigotry, racism, authoritarianism, etc. that people keep buttoned up in personal conversation comes out at the keyboard, even when the people making the posts know that their friends are going to be reading what they write. And yeah, that's been enough to end a few friendships for me, IRL as well as online. You want to post a hundred times about your favorite band? Okay, no problem, I'll just skip past it. You want to talk about how all Muslims are terrorists and all black people are criminals and 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? Bye now, and don't let the virtual door hit you in the virtual ass on the way out.
Reasons I unfriend people (Score:3, Interesting)
I get lots of friendship requests from people I knew in the past, such as high school classmates. I usually accept these, thinking stupidly that these people actually want to talk to me or god forbid, catch up on old times.
Most of the time, I accept these and send a message asking what they've been up to and so on. These messages almost always go unanswered.
Seriously, what's the point of "friending" (is that a verb now?) someone if you have no intent to communicate?
Of course, we've already beaten to death the constant barrage of inane game and application request posts, which are equally annoying.
Re:If you don't like it.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I stopped speaking to my mum because her Facebook posts were too boring.
Only kidding, her posts are usually way funnier than the rest of Facebook (unintentionally).
Re:You learn diffferent things about people online (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you challenge them on these beliefs? Do you tell them that their beliefs (and hatred and bigotry) are why you're no longer willing to consider them a friend?
While I doubt that your friends are deliberately trolling you (or others) by posting extreme things which they do not actually believe, it may be that they've never thought it through and seen the holes... or perhaps never had to defend the position. It's possible that challenging them may make them ignore you, or even re-hide their inner beliefs, but some of them might really be able to grow in their perception of the world.
Acquaintances (Score:1, Interesting)
..FB doesn't separate acquaintances from actual friends. I friend a lot of people I know or have met so their numbers show up in my Android phone on the off chance I need to call them, when I don't *actually* maintain a close friendship with them. Some people don't friend acquaintances. Others friend people they don't know at all. FB needs to have a way to separate these people into groups so viewing and posting permissions can be appropriately and easily applied.
Re:Dislike button... (Score:3, Interesting)
A "dislike" button is just going to have them sending you a message going "why didn't you like that?" anyway, so you might as well just avoid the rigmarole and tell the exactly what the problem is right from the start.
Accosted by Poor Taste (Score:4, Interesting)
I defriended someone for movie reviews. Not because they were filled with spoilers. Because they were awful. I take movies and film making very seriously (even the low/no budget films). I used to work around low budget films, I have friends that still do.
She would say stuff about how indy or arthouse films were hard to follow so she turned them off 10 minutes into them (or just avoided them), but in the next post would praise whatever summer blockbuster she saw that day. She actually said several of my favorite acclaimed films were stupid but then posted a raving review of how Transformers 2 was the best movie she ever saw.
I thought she wasn't serious at first, but after several of months of seeing it, I realized she was the reason Micheal Bay keeps getting to make more movies. I didn't want to be a witness to that.
Re:What exactly is the middle ground? (Score:4, Interesting)
I was at the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly in Salt Lake City a few years ago. One of our campaigns is "Standing on the Side of Love," that stands in solidarity with oppressed groups like GLBT and immigrants, etc. The big banner we had hanging from the convention center was struck by lightning. Good thing I don't believe in god or I might have wondered if I'd misunderstood what Jesus would do.
useless medium (Score:1, Interesting)
You shouldn't put too much into anything you post on Facebook, because anything overtly personal can and will be used against you. Therefore, people only post endless streams of banalities, for fear that any hint of an opinion about something might offend somebody. However, banality is itself offensive, or at least boring, so why bother posting at all?
Sometimes someone will post a picture or a link that is interesting, but otherwise Facebook posts are pure drivel. What's the last truly insightful or interesting thing you've seen on Facebook? I really can't think of anything, it's pure pablum. I enjoyed learning a bit about a few people from my past, but now the only reason I log in is out of idle boredom, and I always leave feeling wishing I could get that little bit of my life back. It's entertaining on the level of watching a soap opera. Maybe worse.
Re:100th my ass (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:100th my ass (Score:4, Interesting)
teh suck
(LOL@rodent)
I think you managed to give a very good example of why people get unfriended....Really, dribble like that is why I don't have my 16 year old cousin friended.
I find Facebook good for two things: Catching wind of social events that the group of younger people I hang around with organize. (I went back to grad school a lot later than those kids who just pushed on through. They grew up a facebook generation, I did not.) The other is keeping in touch with my relatives that all live 1000 miles away. If you're getting spammed with stupid crap, you have two very easy options: Unfriend them or block their status updates. It's really not hard. Nobody needs 400+ friends. Pick a close few, and viola, 95% of the crap is gone.
Re:100th my ass (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:100th my ass (Score:2, Interesting)