Understanding adolescents’ unfriending on Facebook by applying an extended theory of planned behaviour

ABSTRACTBecoming friends on Facebook does not always guarantee long-term friendships as users have the possibility to unfriend people. This unfriending behaviour is frequently occurring and might have negative consequences for both parties. To gain insight into the factors influencing adolescents’ unfriending, the current study made use of an extended version of the theory of planned behaviour. To enrich the theoretical framework, we included antecedents related to adolescents’ friendship management on Facebook, namely their number of friends, their friendship acceptance threshold, and their degree of public communication. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 1.117 adolescents. SEM analyses indicated that both subjective norm and attitude were related to behavioural intention, which in turn was related to adolescents’ unfriending behaviour. Perceived behavioural control was only associated with adolescents’ unfriending behaviour. Regarding the additional factors, the size of adolescents’ friend ne...