Almost everyone at one point or another has wondered whether they have been “unfriended” on Facebook. Thanks to the new Facebook app the Unfriend Finder, it is now possible to uncover those who have chosen to discontinue virtual friendships.

With the Unfriend Finder, Facebook users can now see who has “unfriended” or “refriended” them on Facebook. The app, created using “Greasemonkey” software and other scripting, allows the application to run flush with your Facebook without annoying notifications or distractions.

Although fairly new to Facebook, the app has been running as an add-on for browsers like Firefox and Chrome for slightly over a year. As demonstrated with Disney characters, the app would show a user “Mickey Mouse has removed their profile and is no longer your friend.”

This app is seen (through the eyes of a teen) as a ‘cool’ possibility to see who has left you in the dust, but those who are a little older and a lot wiser have come the realization that the app can cause a lot of problems. Confrontations due to someone virtually unfriending someone is inevitable. Sophomore Ariel Furgat felt that all that the application would do would create issues.

 
“As cool as it could be to see who doesn’t like me anymore, it is just going to end up stirring problems in other areas besides Facebook,” said Furgat.

Junior Zach Ciaglia is more than familiar with programs like this. He wrote a program that allows him to track incoming and outgoing friend requests, long before talk of this app began. Zach was very clear in his opinion of the Unfriend Finder not affecting relationships among students at Lake Park.

 
“People who are caught up by others’ opinions on the internet are ridiculous,” said Ciaglia. “Those affected seriously need to get their priorities straight.”

In the Lake Park community, of 24 freshmen and sophomores interviewed, 13 said they would use the app. With slightly more than half of the total polled population showing interest in the app, that a large number of students showed interest in those who have stopped talking to them virtually, demonstrates the fact that the new app will work its way around the Facebook world one way or another. The question at hand with that many students willing or wanting to use this app, is will there be an increase of altercations among students to “unfriending?”  

Of course there are going to be doubters who say the app doesn’t even work, that the whole thing is just a farce, but after close examination and the discovery of recent lost connections on my own profile, needless to say, it really does work. 

The idea for an app like this has been tossed around for quite some time. Now that it is around what it will do to relationships outside of the virtual world is something that we will have to sit back and watch as it unfolds.