Why does it hurt to be unfollowed?

Perhaps that’s why when I see my follower count drop on any of the various social media accounts I pour my (admittedly curated) life onto, it stings a little (read: a lot). All the more so when one of the lost followers is someone I considered a friend.   Well-publicized cases of being unfollowed on social media seem to suggest that the person who was unfollowed must have been boring, annoying or doing something wrong. A celebrity breakup results in almost immediate unfollowing from and of both parties, Selena Gomez unfollowed a bunch of her friends post-fall-out, while Zendaya and more reportedly unfollowed Chris Brown when he made controversial comments they didn’t agree with. So it stands to reason that when someone unfollows you, it stings a little. As one writer penned in the piece "Why Being Unfollowed Can Feel Like Having Your Heart Ripped Out": “In overly melodramatic terms, to be unfollowed is to be abandoned. If it’s someone you haven’t met, your meeting now has a permanent rain check. If it’s someone you have, your next encounter will officially be chaperoned by an elephant in the room.” Sarah Buglass, a psychology researcher at Nottingham Trent University says, “[An unfollow] can be seen as a form of rejection. We are increasingly reliant on social media to keep us in the loop with our offline social connections—we use direct messaging rather than phone/text, we keep track of birthdays, organize events/outings, we share thoughts, feelings and photos […] To suddenly find you have been removed from this digital loop is for many tantamount to being socially excluded.” This, she adds, has been shown to impact negatively on our emotions in terms of lack of self–worth, a decreased sense of belonging, and lowered mood.

An unfollow can reportedly even make someone question their life choices. David Brudo, CEO and co-founder of mental wellbeing and personal development app Remente, explains: “So many of us choose to share very personal elements of our lives on social media. Receiving an unfollow can make us feel like we are not living up to expectation, which can lead to feelings of self-doubt and insecurity.” As blogger, author, and all-round social media whiz Emma Gannon wrote, “[When someone unfollowed me] I’d brainstorm privately all the probable reasons they might have gone off me [sic]. Am I too self-absorbed? Too opinionated? Too much self-promotion? Is it because I tweeted a First World Problem?” Brudo went on to liken an unfollow to shunning—a form of social punishment that has been used throughout history. Slightly extreme, perhaps, but evidently who’s-unfollowed-who is enough of an important question to have birthed countless apps and websites. Unfollowgram, for example, lets you know who's not following you back, and has over three million users. As someone with one of these apps, when a friend unfollows me, it feels very much like a sucker punch. And I almost always end up immediately unfollowing back, which is obviously a very immature way of dealing with the situation. A quick ask on my social networks found that most people feel hurt, sad to anxious and even angry, and that pretty much everyone just instantly unfollows back, too, probably thanks in large part to a bruised ego. A few people commented that it’s ridiculous this could result in any kind of negative emotion, but a 2012 study found that unfollowing close online connections can induce strong negative emotions and feelings of rejection—just like they would in the offline world.