The 7 Deadly Sins of Facebook

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Val

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Photo by Amarand Agasi via Flickr Creative Commons license

Out of close to One Billion citizens of Facebookistan, there is bound to be folks who get upset with their friends from time to time. I asked the question “Why do you delete “friends” from Facebook?” and got some pretty interesting responses.

1. Being Negative: Hate to say it, but if you are constantly complaining about what is not right in your world, folks will delete you from their timeline. Everyone is entitled to a bad day. However, Facebook is not the place to air every single ailment or displeasure in life. In fact, a recent study from the University of Waterloo and published in Psychological Science found that “people with low self-esteem get more responses from their real Facebook friends when they post highly positive updates, compared to less positive ones.” Facebook is Not Such a Good Thing for Those with Low Self-Esteem

2. Drama: Baby Mama Drama. Baby Daddy Drama. Work Drama. Relationship Drama. Family Drama. Please, for your own sake, keep it off the Book. From my informal survey, this came up quite a bit in terms of deleting friends. We have to remember that Facebook is a social media outlet. Would you go to a cocktail party telling those around that your significant other is a deadbeat? And even though no one may be commenting, more folks are watching than you think.

3. Inappropriate Images: If you are uploading or are “tagged” to inappropriate images, unless your privacy settings are controlled, those images are showing in your friend’s news feed. Spammers are rampant, but many participants in the survey expressed that if a friend is associated with inappropriate images, that friend will be deleted.

4. Potty Mouth: Dropping the F-Bomb on every status will lead to many deleting you as a friend. There are those out there who may not be bothered by that type of chatter, but for those on my survey, inappropriate language was a big NO NO.

5. Disrespectful Comments Towards President Obama (Politics): I actually thought this was an interesting reason why someone would delete a Facebook friend. No one is against factual disagreement, but when name calling is involved, it can be a big turnoff.

6. TMI: Posting too much information or too often can get you into file 13. Just remember, everything in moderation.

7. Excessive Requests: This is a polite way of saying, “You are always selling something.” Don’t promote yourself all of the time. While it is ok to promote, remember the cocktail party scenario. Build relationship first so that you can stay top of mind to your Facebook friends.

I must add that one participant of the survey mentioned that before giving someone the boot, at least examine the person who is making these violations. Instead of deleting someone, you could always hide their posts from appearing in your news feed. I’ll admit, since reading that comment, instead of me deleting someone outright, I now examine the situation and gauge whether I want to totally delete or just hide the drama/tmi/negativity. But that’s totally your call.

What are some reasons why you delete folks off of your Facebook friend’s list? Please leave a comment.

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10 Ways To Avoid Being A Facebook Jerk-Face

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About Val

Val Boaten is the Founder and Principal Consultant of The KaiCon Group, a Social Media Consulting Firm. Outside of her love for social media and helping small businesses and non-profits with their social media strategy, she is a wife and mother/chauffeur of 3 active boys. She and her family are also actively involved in their local church.
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  • MELISA Source

    You really hit the nail on the head with this one!! All of these are very on-point. I see these ‘deadly sins’ being committed on Facebook all of the time, every day! The one that I dislike the most though is negativity and making fun of others or their  misfortunes. Anytime that I see that, I immediately hide that person from my news feed. I firmly believe in ‘treat others as you want to be treated.’ This especially applies to social media! I have a strict “negativity-free zone” policy for my both my Facebook news feed and any posts/comments on my timeline! :)

    • kaicongroup

      Thanks so much. And I like how you utilized the “hide” factor instead of the “delete”. While I knew this option was available, it was good to see that others use it. You may not want to totally disconnect with a person depending on the relationship offline, but you can control what you see and when you see it. Appreciate the response.

  • http://twitter.com/MWritesMedia MeganWrites Media

    Great post, Val! So many people break these rules. I have many friends with home businesses that constantly try to sell on their pages. Needless to say, I’ve unsubscribed from their updates.

    • kaicongroup

      Thanks for dropping by. Since this post, I’ve been even more cautious on how I post things on my personal Facebook. We do not want to break the rules of engagement and turn folks away. I’m also implementing the hide mechanism more as others suggested. It helps. Especially for those folks that I want to continue to keep in contact with.

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