Out-of-Place Content: How Repetitive, Offensive, and Opinion-Challenging Social Media Posts Shape Users’ Unfriending Strategies in Spain

Beatriz Jordá, Azahara Cañedo, Márton Bene and Manuel Goyanes
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Beatriz Jordá: Department of Communication, Carlos III University, Getafe, 28903 Madrid, Spain
Azahara Cañedo: Faculty of Communication, University of Castilla-La Mancha, 16071 Cuenca, Spain
Márton Bene: Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence, 1097 Budapest, Hungary
Manuel Goyanes: Department of Communication, Carlos III University, Getafe, 28903 Madrid, Spain

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-15

Abstract: Filtering strategies enable social media users to remove undesired content from their feeds, potentially creating homophilic environments. Although previous studies have addressed the individual-level factors and content features that influence these decisions, few have solely focused on users’ perceptions. Accordingly, this study applies social exchange theory to understand how users socially construct the process of unfriending. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with young Spaniards, we identify a widespread pattern of rejection over repetitive, opinion-challenging, and offensive posts, which we conceptualize as out-of-place content, a type of social media stimulus that hinders substantive online exchanges and challenges users’ understanding of social reality and individual values. This study contributes to current literature on unfriending by suggesting that filtering strategies are implemented gradually when posts overwhelm users’ tolerance threshold. Our findings also suggest that their deployment hinges on the closeness of the relationship between peers and social commitments formed in specific platforms. Future research is needed to assess to what extent the patterns identified in our interviews are present in the overall population.

Keywords: social media; unfriending; social exchange theory; tolerance; public value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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