Users most likely to unfriend high school friends on Facebook: Survey

The most likely type of person to be unfriended on Facebook is a high school friend, a new study has found.

Scientists have found new insight into the most common kind of 'friend' who is unfriended on Facebook, as well as the unfriended person's emotional response to such a situation.

Researchers from the University of Colorado, Denver, found that the top five kinds of people respondents unfriended were: high school friends, other, friend of a friend, work friends and common interest friend.

"The most common reason for unfriending someone from high school is that the person posted polarising comments often about religion or politics," said Christopher Sibona, a doctoral student in the Computer Science and Information Systems programme at the CU Denver Business School.

"The other big reason for unfriending was frequent, uninteresting posts," said Sibona.

Sibona's first study examined 'context collapse and unfriending behaviours' on Facebook and his second looked at 'the emotional response to being unfriended.'

Both studies were based on a survey of 1,077 people conducted on Twitter.

"We found that people often unfriend co-workers for their actions in the real world rather than anything they post on Facebook," Sibona said.

One reason he believes high school friends are top targets for unfriending is that their political and religious beliefs may not have been as strong when they were younger.

And if those beliefs have grown more strident over time, it becomes easier to offend others.

"Your high school friends may not know your current political or religious beliefs and you may be quite vocal about them," Sibona said.

"And one thing about social media is that online disagreements escalate much more quickly," Sibona said.

The second study looked at the emotional impact of being unfriended.

Sibona found a range of emotions connected to unfriending, from being bothered to being amused. The most common responses to being unfriended were: 'I was surprised', 'It bothered me', 'I was amused' and 'I felt sad'.

"The strongest predictor is how close you were at the peak of your friendship when the unfriending happened," said Sibona.

iPhone 6 interest at record levels thanks to 'large screen' rumours: Survey

Thanks to the rumours that Apple will release two large screen iPhone variants in September, the iPhone 6 seems to be already generating a huge level of consumer interest.

According to a survey from 451 Research's ChangeWave, the desire of buying the next-generationiPhone has reached new heights. For the yet-to-be-announced iPhone 6, 14 percent of the consumers are "very likely" to buy the device, while 26 percent said they were "somewhat likely" to purchase it.

The survey, which was answered by over 4,000 mostly North American respondents, asked customer if they would buy an iPhone 6 based on the speculations, such as a larger display, gesture control, an updated iOS, an even faster processor than the iPhone 5s, and a starting price of $199 (with 2-year contract).

As noted by 451 Research, the level of interest is up from the last surveys for the iPhone 5s and a March 2012 survey for the iPhone 5.

"This is the highest level of demand for an unannounced Apple model in a ChangeWave survey - stronger than we've seen in previous years for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5 models prior to their announcements," said Andy Golub of 451 Research. "Speculation over a larger screen iPhone is clearly striking a chord with consumers."

451 Research's ChangeWave surveys have been tracking consumer interest in larger-screen smartphones since 2012 - and throughout this time it has seen a growing interest. In the latest survey, nearly half (47%) of planned smartphone buyers say they're most interested in buying a 5-inch screen or larger - the highest level since the question was added to the survey.

While the survey suggests that consumers are really digging the idea of Apple's next large-screen iPhone, it is likely to catch-up to the Samsung Galaxy S5 buying interest on the release day. The same company found greater consumer interest in Galaxy S5 than any other S-series Galaxy smartphone