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The benefits of unfriending people on Facebook on National Unfriend Day

Stop thinking about it and just do it!
Stop thinking about it and just do it! Stop thinking about it and just do it!

Your Facebook friend list is probably packed full of old colleagues or people you went to school with and haven’t seen for 20 years.

So ask yourself this – do you need or even want all these obscure Facebook friends? If the answer is no, then you’ll be pleased to know today is National Unfriend Day.

American TV host Jimmy Kimmel founded NUD back in 2010, so thanks to him we can celebrate the act of getting rid of those Facebook friends we no longer want, without feeling guilty.

Still unsure? Here are the reasons why you should go ahead and “drain the swamp” today.

Privacy

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For many of us, Facebook is a place where we can share pictures of our family and friends, but it may not be desirable to do this if you have hundreds of Facebook friends you barely know.

Facebook theoretically has lots of tools to keep photos, posts, and personal information limited to certain sub-groups of your friends, but very few people use them.

According to Sarah Buglass, a cyber psychologist at Nottingham Trent University: “Having a large, unmanageable network means that you’re less likely to post. It also means that when you do post you will second-guess everything as you can’t moderate who’s going to see your pictures and so it doesn’t feel personal.”

What’s the point of even having Facebook if you don’t feel comfortable posting videos of your dad snoring on the sofa?

Fear of missing out

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If you’re the kind of person who suffers from fomo, you’ll know that being bombarded with evidence of other people’s amazing-seeming lives on social media when you don’t feel great about your own can be a major downer.

But if you have a large, impersonal Facebook network, chances are you’ve got a number of “those Facebook friends” who are always travelling to far-flung exotic locations, are always getting promoted, look like supermodels and are always happy.

This kind of unrealistic positivity will fill you with doubt and resentment about your own life and, let’s face it, the everyday grind is tough enough without being inundated with that kind of unadulterated happiness.

Buglass says deleting fomo-inducing Facebook friends will “improve your self-esteem and help you feel more content with your own life”.

Reduction in stress

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Social media should be a source of entertainment and relief, a place you can interact with like-minded people, but having lots of Facebook friends can have the opposite effect.

If you’ve got a load of people who are clogging up your news feed with things you’re not interested in then naturally that’s going to frustrate you.

It’s almost like having a party: the fewer people you invite over, the less stressed you are. Keeping your circle small and intimate will mean all the content you see on your page will be meaningful and will ultimately lead to less stress.

According to social media analytics specialists Socialbakers: “It might not be an easy decision to unfriend someone on Facebook, but, in the long term, having a personalised news feed with content that really matters to you will certainly have a positive impact.”