Social
Media sites like Facebook take off so well for an individual and the first
couple of years of being on it is super exciting for everyone as they connect
with old buddies, high school friends, college mates, even old and current
neighbors and find out what’s going on in each other’s lives. The friend circle
expands to “Friends of Friends” with a
click of a few buttons and impulsive ‘friend acceptances’. On-line friendships
develop. The vision expands and elaborates. Eventually, it starts to take over.
Deep connections are formed and emotions flow through the digital world as
well. Emotions, with all their depth and variety start spilling out as words
and pictures. Re-using them out of context becomes easier. The bigger your
‘friend list’ the more repetitive your newsfeed becomes. If you’ve been on
Facebook for a couple or more years with an expanded friend list, you’ve seen
it all. The charm starts to fade away. The quotes and jokes are copied,
repeated without credits, pictures flaunted, businesses advertised, news shared
from popular channels, and an over doze of similar comments is seen flowing
across. While the number of “Likes” being the most gratifying experience of the
day, becomes increasingly competitive; sensitivity towards human behaviors also
becomes more prevalent. And then comes a stage of ‘digital awareness and
realization’ , a time to know that it’s ok to cut down on the noise in the
friend list. Though ‘Unsubscribing’ to a friend neatly removes friends’ posts from your newsfeed,
‘Unfriending’ is a more popular click to remove the ‘annoyance’ from your
newsfeed. Some choose to do a regular ‘Spring Clean Up’ while others are forced
to do it when they reach their 5000 friend list mark. Here’s a few characteristic
behaviors that are linked to an ‘annoyance factor’ and trigger being ‘Unfriended’ on Facebook.
1. Display
self- obsession with regards to moods, pictures, selfies: Unless there is common interest,
personal relationship or another worldly motivation to keep these people in
your list, those who post too much on facebook are the first to go.
2. Send
game invites:
Though there is a setting in our account to disable game invites, not many
users are aware of it and end up receiving irritating game requests. Those who
play the games probably are not even aware of the invites being sent through
their account and sometimes get unjustly unfriended on this regard alone
3. Tag
unnecessarily: To
attain visibility, some users tag ‘popular’ bloggers on their general posts. This misleads people to
the posts as those from the ‘popular’ user as well as clogs timelines of those
tagged. Untagging manually is an additional task and hence ‘unfriending’ or turning
tag reviewing on becomes an easier way out.
4.
Ill-mannered or indecent comments : Thankfully deleting comments,
messages and even accounts from your
friend list is a mechanism easily applied to types who use indecent or
rude FB etiquettes. Blocking abusive, and blunt behavior out of your lives is
as easy as blocking an account.
5. Impertinent
messages or jokes in inbox:
Though it may seem private, an inbox can be very intrusive as well. What comes
through an inbox reveals more than any comment or post does about a person and
hence it immediately raises a red flag. Consistent nosiness, and ungracious or
vulgar jokes or messages certainly lead to unfriending
6. Stalking
to flirt with you or your friends:
Light flirting seems to be a common behavior on FB. The cross over from
appreciating to exaltation is visibly obvious. As a human being, no one minds
the magnified appreciation coming their own way, but its expansion towards ones
friends or family members is intolerable. When your facebook friends start
digitally toying with your real friends and family, the unfriend button is the
first to be clicked.
7.
Pessimistic or orthodox attitude in
life: Most people
hop onto facebook at the end of the day wanting to take their mind off the
regular days work and for de-stressing. Entertainment is what they are looking
for. Those who constantly post negative or strongly opinioned posts filled with
critic and their despairing judgments about various topics will get unfriended
by these recreation seeking individuals
8.
Disliking or unfriending in real
life : Altered
relationships in real life will immediately get reflected on social media as
well. Any friction in your relationship leads to unfriending, sometimes even
expanding to close friends of people who you are unfriending as well.
9. Business
promotion: Some
only use facebook for promoting their business and those users are more
likely to get unfriended by those who
don’t anticipate using their services anytime in life.
10. Inactive
or minimal participation on your wall:
This reason may be less related to the ‘annoyance factor’ and more to keeping a
manageable friend list. But some will unfriend you because you do not like
their post or comment on them. For some, this is also an act of failing
expectations and causing disappointment specially if these users are seen
commenting on other peoples posts.
11. No
response: When
people send you a message, they expect a reply. A no-response from you would be
considered an impolite behavior and will call for unfriending specially when
you are actively participating on your own wall and other walls as well.
12. Stay
private: Though
there is setting to ‘restrict’ in general and also restrict the audience per
post, ‘unfriending’ is used by some to not share their own personal pictures
and stories with those who are in the outer circle of friends or those who
copy, or misuse their personal information.
Reading at
this list again, it may seem like no matter what you do, you are bound to get ‘unfriended’
by someone sometime in your facebook life. Though there are a few somewhat
likable post trends like jokes and preachy quotes, but those users too are not
regarded as gurus and too much of such posts can be just as annoying. In fact there
is no fool proof way of preventing the ‘unfriending’. But, interestingly we
also found that this was a mutual criteria. Most of the time it is both parties
who dislike each other and one is just glad that the other pulled the plug on
this. As in real life, we move on. In facebook as well, this list should not
stop us from being who we are. It is a great medium to express yourself and
sometimes even define yourself. Some will love you and some will not. That should
not stop you from being your unique self. Enjoy the journey, know that things
like “restricted”, “blocking”, “unsubscribing” and “unfriending” will continue
to happen, and know that there is no benefit in taking offense to it or holding
a grudge against someone who unfriended you. Facebook is a tool and just like
you cannot blame a spoon for making you fat, you cannot blame a digital tool
for exposing you to the bragging capabilities of others. And just like you
cannot blame the spice in the food for not being able to resist it, you cannot
blame the capacity of others to annoy you. Choose well and enjoy the ride.
Contributing
thoughts for this article were provided by: Hitant Vohra, Jagdeep Singh,
Vandana Midha, Rajiv Lochan, Suneet Kheterpal, Anandini Chandreshekhar,
Sukhpreet Brar, Filza C Filza, Simrat Parmar, Mukesh Kumar Sagar, Leigh Nicole,
Reena Kharkwal, Nishi Jaswal, Ragoo Raghunathan, Amardeep Singh Sehgal, Karan
Bir Singh Sidhu, Anant Barbadikar, Rohini Iris Pola, Sona Sara, Braj Cals,
Reeta Tuli, Amritha Mangalat, Shaadi bazaar, Sharda Jha Prabha Srinivasan,
Tarseme Singh, Anjana Mangalat, Madhupurna Sen, Vika Soni, Nalini Krishnan,
Nitima Pangasa, Milind Deshpande, Sidhartha Roy, Parminder Irvine, Kapal
Minhas, Kanti Sharma and Sanjay Sood
