Vol. 25 No. 1 (2022)
Articles

UNFRIENDING ON FACEBOOK: SPECIFICS, MOTIVATIONS, AND REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE UNFRIENDED

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  • Polimira Miteva
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7546/PsyRB.2022.25.01.03

Published 06/10/2022

Keywords

  • unfriending,
  • social media,
  • friendship termination,
  • closeness,
  • digital behavior

How to Cite

Miteva, P. (2022). UNFRIENDING ON FACEBOOK: SPECIFICS, MOTIVATIONS, AND REPERCUSSIONS FOR THE UNFRIENDED. Psychological Research (in the Balkans), 25(1). https://doi.org/10.7546/PsyRB.2022.25.01.03

Copyright (c) 2022 Psychological Research (in the Balkans)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The article investigates the reasons for friendship termination on social network sites, like Facebook, and analyses the aftereffects for the deleted person. Specifics in the online defriending process, like social media usage intensity, audience size, status, and self-image, are outlined. The literary review also reveals parallels between friendship termination stages in online and offline environments. Different reasons for Facebook friendship discontinuation are listed with their classification of online and offline origin. The online habitual behavior that leads to unfriending includes too frequent posting, scarce activity and too many game requests. Quality characteristics of the content like polarizing statements, obscene or attention-seeking posts are among the online reasons for defriending. Emotional outcomes that follow defrending such as being bothered, feeling sadness, surprise or rumination, are closely observed.

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