SACRAMENTO - When you're checking your news feed on Facebook, or looking at what friends or colleagues post on Twitter, it's not uncommon to see passionate posts about politics. They could even be someone from your family who posts something that gets under your skin.
But is it enough for you to delete them?
New data collected from the Pew Research Center found that one out of every five users of social media admit to blocking, unfriending, or hiding someone in the virtual world over political postings.
Those postings could including everything from blogs and links to stories that support their political views or a candidate they want to see win. They also include individual politically charged comments.
Researchers found that the person who was offended, or had other reasons to hit the 'delete', 'hide', or 'block' button, said the virtual friend they targeted was posting too often about politics, disagreed with others' updates, or bothered mutual friends with partisan political postings.
Of course the risk of deleting a friend all together is that it may affect that friendship in real life once that person finds out you chose to get rid of them.
But let's face it, many of the so-called 'friendships' in the virtual land of Facebook and Twitter, are not real to begin with.
News10/KXTV