Tag Archives: Unfriending

We’ve all had this thought go through our heads: I just want to delete this person on Facebook. However, we often reluctantly keep them as a “friend”. Most Facebook users have hundreds of friends on their lists; many of these friendships just exist for the sake of being Facebook friends. In a way, Facebook dictates these social norms that once you’ve made friends on Facebook, you can expect to have made a friend for life.

In this Youtube video, Jimmy Kimmel announces November 17th as “National Unfriend Day” or “NUD”. Kimmel’s humorous approach to all the Facebook madness might actually be shedding some light on our ever-growing Friends lists.  It’s easy to confirm a friend when that person is in your math class or you met that person at last night’s party. On the other hand, when you repeat this act for a prolonged amount of time, you’re looking at your Friends list and not recognizing many of your acquaintances. According to AOL News, studies done at several well-known universities show that we can only retain 150 friends at a time. These studies also show that there is some narcisstic behavior associated with all the “friending”. Ultimately, as the number of our friends increase, we become more conscious of our Facebook appearance, leading to more of your thoughts being taken up by Facebook.

We know that all these Friends are useless, but we’re either too lazy to remove them or conscious of the possibility of the awkward repercussions. But what’s really more important – your time or your Facebook?