Pew reveals rise in the awkward task of de-friending

Pew's latest insights into the behavior of social networkers reveals that the three major metrics for managing profiles are up compared with three years ago.

In 2009, 53% of users had de-friended someone. That figure has now risen to 63%. The number of users deleting comments is also up from 36% in 2009 to 44%, as are the number of photo tags being removed up from 30% to today's 37%.

When it comes to de-friending undesirable followers on Facebook many find it a difficult, if not awkward, task. Pew's study found that women (67%) were more likely to hit the delete button than men (58%). Being de-friended has shown to evoke powerful emotions, even homicide.

Overall, keeping profiles private is on the up. Over half (58%) now set their main profile to 'Friends Only' and just 19% allow access to 'Friends of Friends'. Two in five profiles are left completely open to the public and, while many of these are commentators or people seeking a wide audience, some are the result of users who are unaware of how to manage Facebook privacy settings. Pew discovered that almost half (49%) find managing their privacy settings an easy task but 48% say it's hard to do and 2% have real difficulties.

Tags: Facebook, gender, privacy, profile, research, social network, U.S.