The bar chart compares the main factors that lead people to add or remove friends on a popular social networking site.
Overall, personal connections from everyday life dominate the reasons for making friends online, while negative behaviour is the primary cause of unfriending.
In terms of adding friends, knowing someone in real life is by far the strongest motivator, accounting for just over 80%. Sharing mutual friends comes second, at around 60%. By contrast, professional contacts, physical attractiveness and simply wanting a higher friend count play only minor roles, each influencing fewer than 12% of users.
Turning to the reasons for ending online friendships, offensive comments stand out as the most common trigger, affecting approximately 55% of people. Not knowing the other person well and attempts to sell products or services are also significant, at about 42% and 38% respectively. Depressing posts and a lack of interaction are less decisive, influencing roughly 22% and 15% of unfriend decisions.