Phillip Cuddeback
Sociology 022 – In the Facebook Age – Spring 2010 – Dhiraj Murthy

I chose not to de-friend any of my friends on Facebook because either I would de-friend someone who I like and would not want to make them think that I have changed my feelings towards them for some reason and also because if I de-friended someone who I barely know, the act of de-friending would not affect me nor would it the other person; the whole thing would be pointless. De-friending rarely happens on Facebook because if your relationship with someone went sour, you would most likely just stop communicating with them on Facebook and not need to de-friend them. De-friending on Facebook in not indicative of your relationship in the real world falling apart. I feel as though de-friending is childish because it doesn’t really mean anything. Although, if this is the case then why did I have difficulty de-friending someone. I think the answer may lie in the explaining or not explaining to the person why I did it. If I de-friended a close friend, I could easily tell them later that it was for a sociology class and then I would end up re-friending the person and the whole ordeal might have not have happened in the first place. Although, if I de-friended someone who I am acquainted with but not necessarily good friends with, then do I go out of the way to explain that the de-friending was for a sociology class and then have the awkward confrontation of re-friending them, or would I not tell them and just let the de-friending happen without any explanation. Both cases result in awkward situations that I did not feel like being a part of and thus, I did not de-friend anyone.