In my lifetime, I’ve had the good fortune of having a handful of good friends.
Each of my four teenage daughters has many hundreds. At least that’s what they call every Facebook connection they collect like trophies. The list of those kinds of friends includes people they barely know, some they don’t know at all, and even some people they don’t like.
Since the 2016 presidential election, news accounts and scientific research have illustrated how defriending, a term originally associated with dropping Facebook friends, echoes in our broader, offline social lives. And what may seem like a simple decision to cut off a difficult relationship may actually deepen divisions in society.
As social scientists who study social networks, we were keen to take a closer look at defriending beyond social media and the internet, particularly as the U.S. approaches what is likely to be another contentious presidential election.
