Facebook troublemakers can give you tough time online!

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: If researchers are to be trusted, socially well connected people may become online troublemakers on Facebook only for those who try to avoid them.

So, if till now, you were thinking that you cannot unfriend your dearest buddy on the social networking site because he/she might make your life miserable, you were absolutely right.

Online troublemakers tend to be socially well connected, said a team from Nottingham Trent University in Britain, adding that some Facebook users remain friends online with troublemakers because they are worried about the repercussions if they "unfriend" them.

People are spending more and more time online making them more vulnerable to potentially damaging social tension and disagreements. 

"Our study explored the characteristics of people who might be more likely to cause this sort of trouble in an online social network," said Sarah Buglass from the school of social sciences.

This implies that Facebook users might be keeping an eye on provocative friends in a bid to avoid confrontation themselves.

The findings revealed that online troublemakers tended to be socially popular contacts who were known and in regular communication with the participants offline but not online.

(With IANS inputs)