These are the Most Annoying Behaviors on Social Media, According to a New Survey

Social media is the perfect way to stay in touch with friends and family, while also engaging with content of personal interest. However, all that glitters is not gold. Social media often harbors annoying posts, illegitimate news, and distasteful behaviors that cause users to feel irritated while scrolling through their feed.

With a specialty in real pests and a desire to learn more about the ones living digitally, Insight Pest Solutions gathered the responses of over 750 social media users to determine which “digital pests” were most invasive and bothersome. The social media sites they used in their study were the five most popular among their participants: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Youtube.

The first category of their findings identified the most annoying financially motivated pests. Gathering 32% of the vote from respondents, the pest people found most annoying were get rich quick schemes and multi-level marketing (MLM) businesses. Oftentimes, these types of businesses yield a high turnover rate and instill an inflated sense of hope that individuals can achieve enormous financial success. With many being informed on the rejection and false promises that plague get rich quick schemes and MLM businesses, those scrolling on social media often feel annoyed and deterred from such posts. The pests that were deemed second and third most annoying were bots that automatically post at you (20.75%), and influencers in general (16.73%). Bots become increasingly aggravating to social media users due to their inability to connect as a human, and forceful communication tactics. Although influencers aren’t programmed bots, their posting behavior can feel robotic since they primarily share content to build awareness of a brand.

The second category of their findings discovered the most annoying overly personal pests. Coming in first place was exclusively sharing political and personal beliefs (27.24%). Many of us know how heated debates around politics can become, and as a warning, we’re often reminded not to bring up such topics at family gatherings and classroom settings. Trailing close behind in second and third place was sharing too many details about one’s personal life (23.61%), and posting cryptic messages or song lyrics in a bid for attention (20.88%).

The last category of their study found the most annoying pests who were “doing too much” - a phrase for someone who unnecessarily goes out of their way to emphasize or disrupt a standard flow. Winning the large majority of votes, at 40.60% were internet trolls, or those who go out their way to troll others, who respondents considered most annoying. Internet trolls intentionally comment or post aggressive and insensitive content to get a rise out of others. In many cases, you’ll find internet trolls inhabiting social media profiles with blank pictures and fake names to avoid being identified or reprimanded for their behavior. The second most annoying pest in this category was unconventional spelling, fonts, or capitalization, gathering 17.51% of votes. Considerably less harmful than trolling, this pest is more of a slight annoyance and eyesore to users. Although the people who share content in unconventional fonts may feel unique for doing so, it can come across as annoying to users who prefer consuming their content in an easily digestible form. Next, people who used too many filters were deemed the third most annoying pest, with 16.60% of respondents choosing this answer. We all love a good filter, but seeing social media profiles that exist completely of filtered selfies may be a downer for those who desire less-filtered postings.

Ultimately, we can’t be perfect in how we navigate social media, but it doesn’t hurt to be well informed on behaviors to avoid while posting and sharing content.