Politically active users likelier to "unfriend" people on Facebook

A new study has revealed that politically active users are more likely to "unfriend" people on Facebook than normal users.

Nicholas John of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Shira Dvir-Gvirsman of the Tel Aviv University conducted an online survey among Jewish Israeli Facebook users between September 3 to 7, 2014 - between one week and ten days after the open-ended ceasefire of August 26, 2014.

In the test, 1,103 respondents representing the Israeli population on Facebook were studied. They were asked about their political activity, ideological extremity and Facebook activity during the conflict. The researchers found that 50 percent of the respondents reported being more active on Facebook during this time period and 16 percent of users unfriended or unfollowed a Facebook friend for political reasons during this time period. Facebook users who unfriended others were more likely to be ideologically extreme and less supportive of free speech.

The data also supported that those with more Facebook friends were more likely to unfriend, indicating that having a greater amount of weak ties allows for more unfriending. John said that these findings suggested that the people most likely to unfriend were younger, more politically active, more active on Facebook, have lots of Facebook friends, and have more extreme political views. The study is published in the Journal of Communication.