If You Unfriend on Facebook Do You Unfriend in Real Life?

While reading a science teacher magazine, my wife came across an article outlining a scientific study that was performed to see how unfriending someone on Facebook affected real life relationships that she brought to my attention I thought I would share with you.

The study was performed by the University of Colorado in Denver and their findings were quite interesting.  The author of the study, Christopher Sibona, found that 40 percent of people surveyed said they would avoid in real life anyone who unfriended them on Facebook.  Some 50 percent said they would not avoid the person and the remaining 10 percent were unsure.  Women said the would avoid contact more than men.

Furthermore, Sibona did another study in 2010 asking why people unfriended (or un-liked) others and here is what he found out:

• Frequent, unimportant posts.
• Polarizing posts usually about politics or religion.
• Inappropriate posts involving sexist, racist remarks
• Boring everyday life posts about children, food, spouses etc.

You can read the full article here.

Does social networking affect real life situations?  What have you found out with your social networking efforts?