PARIS: Finding yourself with fewer friends than before on social networks like Facebook, Twitter or Google+? Chances are it’s your offensive or depressing comments that are driving your friends away.
A study by research firm NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey company, has found that offensive comments are the number one reason why Facebook users un-friend someone (55 per cent). Females are more likely to be offended by inappropriate posts while men don’t like “friends” who try and sell them something.
Additional reasons for de-friending someone on Facebook include not knowing them well (41 per cent), posting depressing comments (23 per cent), lack of interaction (20 per cent) and political comments (14 per cent).
“Facebook etiquette also plays a role,” says NM Incite, “with updating too often, too little or having too many friends a consideration for some Facebook users.”
Trying to boost your friend list on Facebook? You might need to get out from behind the computer and start meeting people in real life.
Eighty-two per cent of Facebook users said knowing someone in person is the top reason for adding them on the social network. Others cited a mutual friend, business network or physical attractiveness as the main reason to add someone to their online clan.
According to the study, the average Facebook user is friends with 130 people. After studying the Facebook activity of college students over a period of four years, a second study published on December 19 by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that “students who share certain tastes in music and in movies, but not in books, are significantly likely to befriend one another [on Facebook].”
Top reasons why people remove friends on Facebook, according to NM Incite:
1. Offensive comments - 55%2. Don’t know well - 41%3. Trying to sell me something - 39%4. Depressing comments - 23%5. Lack of interaction - 20%6. Political comments - 14%7. Break-up / divorce - 11%8. Don’t like their friends - 8%9. Update profile too often - 6%10. They add too many people - 6%11. They don’t update enough - 3%