[navaati]

Why not remove these persons you don’t feel close to from your friends list ? When I was using facebook, after I moved in life, say going from highschool to university and my list grew with my new university acquaintances there, I pruned it from the acquaintances of the past life, high school people I knew didn’t matter so much to me once they were not part of my life anymore.

So my friend list organically went through cycles of growth and shrink and probably stayed roughly constant, with the only long term growth being people that "sticked around" in my life.

[matsemann]

Because I kinda want to keep up with their big events. Like kids, marriages, jobs, a new house or whatever. And I see some of them occasionally when "back home" and then it's nice to have kept somewhat superficially in touch. And fb works for that. It's just all the day-to-day stuff no one posts anymore.

[kaycebasques]

There's also the unspoken norm that un-friending someone is rude. I frequently prune my following lists and then I run into someone I've met and imagine them getting slightly upset that I have unfollowed them. Maybe that sounds silly, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of my peers would say similr things.

The way that we describe the action, "un-friending", probably influences the notion that it's a serious / rude thing to do. We need some kind of UI that emphasizes that it's not a big deal whatsoever and is not a rude thing.

[navaati]

Makes sense, thanks for your answer.