One can’t argue with Oxford, and the proclamation from those hallowed halls is that the word of the year for 2009 is… unfriend.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, Facebook has contributed the word of the year.  Unfriend is defined by Oxford as a verb meaning to “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” Well, no kidding.  As usual, the establishment is a bit behind the times, but it’s certainly very interesting to look back on past words of the year to gain insight into the social climate of that time. Shall we?

2009’s word of the year hints heavily at the influence and infiltration of social networking into modern day life.  Myself, I have been part of some sort of social network for most of my teenage and adult life (anyone remember Friendster? Asia Avenue?) and it’s hard to think of what life was like before there was such a thing.  In social networking etiquette, to unfriend someone is tantamount to betrayal.  It requires so little effort to add someone, but actual effort to seek out and unfriend them, implying that the deleter must really hate the deleted’s guts.  Who hasn’t felt the well-placed sting of trying to access a friend’s/frenemy’s/enemy’s profile only to discover you have been locked out? Nowadays, people even race to block or delete formal significant other’s and BFFs to claim the “I got over you first” prize, so no wonder the word unfriend has become so entrenched into our vernacular.

The more diplomatic way to go about removing someone without removing them is to keep them on your list and to subtly screen them out of your network sphere.  Facebook allows this with its list functionality, whereby users can create lists with custom privacy settings for various levels of friends.  Now Jane can instantly discover that she’s not such a BFF with Jill by looking at her profile via Chuck’s account and seeing how much more Chuck can see versus her!  Talk about scandalous!  Isn’t that so much more of a slap in the face than being upfront and just deleting that person?  I think so.

My proclamation for the end of 2009 is to take this unfriend business one step further: I say everyone should go through their friend list and just remove those they don’t like, remember, and/or are unlikely to run into for at least the next 12 months.  What’s the point of all this social clutter?  The majority you delete won’t care, and for those people who do get offended, well, they probably should get a life and you don’t want losers on your list anyways, right?  There are various very legitimate reasons to unfriend someone, which you can read here if you need help filtering; so this season, don’t be a wimp – just unfriend.  Ironically, it just may make you feel more connected.

Related posts:

1. Teens turn their back on social networking
2. Sex Offenders Kicked Off Facebook and MySpace
3. Small companies marketing with social media too

Tags: Facebook, oxford dictionary

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