Adolescents' Reasons to Unfriend on Facebook

The present study is the first to examine adolescents’ reasons for unfriending people on Facebook. By means of open-end questions, 419 participants described the primary online (i.e., arising from friends’ behavior on Facebook) or offline (i.e., emerging from Facebook friends’ offline behavior) reason for which they recently unfriended someone. Two researchers took part in the coding process. Qualitative analyses revealed that unfriending happened mainly for online reasons, such as posting (too much) inappropriate, polarizing or uninteresting posts, seeking attention, bragging or stalking, and other irritating behaviors (e.g., using bad grammar). Some adolescents indicated that they unfriended people due to online reasons related to replacing friendships or interests, quarrels, and incompatible friends/family. In previous studies among adults, quarrels and incompatible friends/family were reported solely as offline reasons. These findings suggest that adolescents potentially argue more often online or that their quarrel is so intense it leads to unfriending decisions. Adults in turn, also unfriend people because of posts related to everyday life (e.g., jobs and children). Such everyday life events seemed to be less relevant for adolescents’ unfriending. The practical value of this study is that it provides a typology of adolescents’ online and offline reasons for unfriending. This typology can be used for further research or by practitioners developing awareness campaigns as it indicates which behavior/events mostly provoke unfriending. Although viewing a post as inappropriate or polarizing might be subjective, general guidelines on how to respectfully address sensitive issues (e.g., political, religious, or other societal issues) can be given.

"The most common online reasons for adolescents to unfriend were related to inappropriate or polarizing posts (e.g., posts about politics or religions), uninteresting posts, seeking attention, bragging or stalking, posting too much, and other irritating behaviors (e.g., using bad grammar and sending game request). This might be related to their identity development and self-exploration. These online self-presentations and their shared opinions will be judged by others and especially by peers as adolescents are highly influenced by them. Some adolescents indicated that they unfriended people on Facebook due to online quarrels, incompatible online friends/family (e.g., bad influences), replacing interests, and new friendships replacing former Facebook friendships. Adolescents and their friends potentially argue more often online or that their quarrel is so intense it leads to unfriending decisions such as relocation or alienation (e.g., having less contact). Adolescents appear to be much less likely to unfriend someone if they initiated the friendship themselves. This can be because of the fact that the initiator of the friend request has lower status than the receiver. As the initiator of the friendship sends a request (i.e., lower status person) which must be accepted by the person with whom the initiator wants to be connected (i.e., higher status person), each response of the higher status person generates the next move in the friendship process. Regarding the findings, practitioners could develop campaigns to make adolescents more aware of potential online behavior that might be irritating for their Facebook connections and possibly leads to unfriending. These campaigns could raise awareness about the alternatives for unfriending, such as changing privacy settings to hide some posts." (Verswijvel et al., 2018, pp. 13-15)