Researchers study the impact that “unfriending” someone has

Two studies from the University of Colorado Denver are shedding new light on the most common type of `friend’ to be unfriended on Facebook and their emotional responses to it. The studies, published earlier this year, show that the most likely person to be unfriended is a high school acquaintance. “The most common reason for unfriending someone from high school is that the person posted polarizing comments often about religion or politics,” said Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the CU Denver Business School. “The other big reason for unfriending was frequent, uninteresting posts.” Sibona’s first study examined `context collapse and unfriending behaviors’ on Facebook and his second looked at `the emotional response to being unfriended.’