Before I get to the study, I just found out that the word "unfriend" was named 2009 "Word of the Year" by the New Oxford American Dictionary.
If that's not a sign of the times, I truly don't know what is...
Anwyho, apparently someone named Christopher Sibona, a PhD student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the University of Colorado Denver Business School conducted a study which revealed the top reasons for Facebook unfriending, who gets unfriended and how said person reacts to said unfriending.
I know... the hell with the economic crisis, the recession and all that good stuff... what I want is my college students studying the ramifications and implications of unfriending someone on Facebook.
Not that I'm bitter or anything...
But we live in a society with an insatiable appetite for all things social media so I felt it my duty to share the results of young Christopher's study, which included over 1,500 current Facebook users.
This is how Master Sibona quantified and justified his study...
And isn't that what this is all about? Developing a theory of "of the entire cycle of friending and unfriending?" cause gosh darn it, I can't sleep at night wondering why people friend and unfriend me...
Not that I'm bitter or anything...
Here's what the study revealed (and feel free to shout out as loud as you can DUH! at any point):
1.Yawn... in other words, you are BORING!
Enough already with your dinner plans or what you did this weekend, or what movie you saw. No one cares!
2. Leave Church & State out of this...
"They say not to talk about religion or politics at office parties and the same thing is true online," said Sibona.
3. Don't be crude, lewd or rude...
Inappropriate posts, such as crude or racist comments, were the third reason for being unfriended.
The study also showed 57% committed the act of unfriending for online reasons, while 26.9 percent did so for offline behavior.
And some respondents reported being deeply hurt at being unfriended, others were more amused than traumatized.
'Deeply hurt?'
Oh good Lord... people, people, people... what's wrong with you? Why in the world would you be deeply hurt? You get deeply hurt if someone plunges a butcher knife into your side, not by having someone unfriend you on Facebook.
"One of the interesting things about unfriending is that most real-world friendships either blow up or fade away," said Sibona, who wrote the study with his adviser, Steven Walczak, an associate professor of information systems management. "But on Facebook, users actively make the decision to unfriend, and people often don't know why or what's happened in the relationship."
You know where this is going, right?
If there aren't already, you will see a steady stream of Facebook Breakup Therapists sprouting up all over the place... each promising to console you; to help you understand why it has to be this way; why said person unfriended you and why you're still a good person deep down and by golly, people still like you.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to hurl everything I have eaten in the past 36 hours.