A new study has found that "unfriending" someone on social networking site Facebook could lead to dire real life consequences.
While "unfriending" someone on Facebook could be as simple as clicking a button, researchers have found that the consequences of doing so are not all that simple.
"People think social networks are just for fun," said study author Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems program at the University of Colorado Denver Business School. "But in fact what you do on those sites can have real world consequences."
A survey that was conducted for the study found that 40 percent of all participants said that they'd rather not meet someone who has "unfriended" them on Facebook in real life. Another 50 percent said the act would have no effect on them while the remaining 10 percent remained undecided. The results were based on 585 surveys that were answered on twitter.
There were largely six factors that influenced a person's decision to avoid a person who has "unfriended" them on the social networking site:
* If the person further discussed the incident of unfriending them
* If the emotional response to the act was negative
* If the person who was unfriended believed the act was a consequence of an offline behavior
* If the two lived in different towns or cities
* If what led to the "unfriending" was discussed with others before the act
* How strong the relationship was.
"The number one predictor was whether the person who said the relationship was over talked about it to someone else," Sibona said. "Talking to someone is a public declaration that the friendship is over."
It was also found that bad offline behavior, which leads to removing someone from the friends' list is another top reason for the "unfriended" person to avoid the person who removed him or her from their friends' list in real life. It was also found that women avoid such people more than men. However, more study is required to find the reason behind this.
