Friends grow apart. It’s a truism that we all realise at some point in our lives, but new research suggests that it's on Facebook that this home truth is most evident.
据《独立报》报道，朋友日渐疏远。这是一个我们在生活中就可以得到印证的真理。不过，新的研究表明，这个真理在Facebook尤为明显。
A new study from the University of Colorado shows that when we’re culling our friends list it's friends school (‘high school’ in the US study) that are most likely to get the chop.
来自科罗拉多大学一项新的研究显示，当我们清除朋友圈的一些人时，高中时期的同学最有可能先被剔除。
The survey, carried out by doctoral student Christopher Sibona, found that the reason for these virtual break-ups was the same as you might expect in real life: people’s opinions mature and develop, and friends find that they're no longer interested in one another.
这项调查由博士生Christopher Sibona实施，并发现这些虚拟网络中人们关系破裂的原因与在现实生活中人们关系破裂的原因是一样的：第一，人们的观念是逐渐成熟并且变化发展的；第二，人们会发现他与原来的朋友没有共同的兴趣爱好了。
“The most common reason for unfriending someone from high school is that the person posted polarizing comments often about religion or politics," Sibona told Phys.org. “The other big reason for unfriending was frequent, uninteresting posts."
“解除好友关系最常见的理由有二：有些人从高中时期就经常对政治或者宗教发表极端的言论政治，另一个主要原因是有些人经常发表无聊内容的帖子。”Sibona对比Phys.org网站说道。
The study surveyed 1,077 people and divided friends into more than a dozen distinct types including “common interest friend”, “friend through spouse” and the somewhat vague category of “internet”.
该项研究调查了1077人，并划分了十几种截然不同的朋友类型，包括“具有共同兴趣的朋友”，“通过配偶找到的朋友”，和“比较模糊一类的网上的朋友”。
From these groups, friends from secondary school were most likely to get the chop, followed by those from the “other” category, “friend of a friend” and then “work friends”.
从这些群体中，中学的朋友们最有可能先被剔除，其次是来自“比较模糊”一类中的朋友，然后是 “朋友的朋友”，最后是“工作上的朋友” 。
Interestingly, while old friends were unfriended because of their actions in the virtual world,friends from work were more often unfriended because of something they'd done in real life.
有趣的是，老的朋友们解除好友关系通常是因为他们在虚拟世界做错了事情，而工作中的朋友被解除好友关系通常是因为他们在现实生活中做错了事情。
Sibona also conducted a second study that surveyed people’s response to being unfriended. This showed that people were most likely to be surprised to an unfriending, while the reaction “it bothered me” came in second followed by "it amused me".
Sibona也对于被解除好友关系的人的反应进行了调查。这项研究表明，人们发现自己在被别人解除好友关系时的第一反应是很惊讶，第二反应是：这让我很困扰，紧接着是：这太好笑了。
Unsurprisingly, the survey also found that people were more likely to have an emotional response to an unfriending based on how far away they were from “the peak of [their] friendship”. Users were also more likely to unfriend close friends than casual acquaintances – suggesting that the intensity of any given relationship is more likely to push it over the edge.
不出所料，调查还发现，那些被亲密朋友解除好友关系的人通常会有比较情绪化的反应。用户也更倾向于与亲密的人解除好友关系而非普通朋友。这表明关系越亲密就越容易被解除好友关系。
"Your high school friends may not know your current political or religious beliefs and you may be quite vocal about them," said Sibona. "And one thing about social media is that online disagreements escalate much more quickly."
“你高中时代的朋友可能不知道你目前的政治或宗教信仰，你可能会对他们畅所欲言， ” Sibona说道。“不过，在网络上发表的意见和分歧传播速度通常会很快。”