ZDNet blogger Emil Protalinski recently shared news of a new Facebook study just completed by NM Incite, a Nielsen company. The study gives us a look into what is driving folks to Facebook and what it means to be friended, or unfriended, on the world’s largest social network.

With a quick glance over the top lines of the results of the study, you’ll see that the top three reasons for a new friend request aren’t all that surprising: knowing the person in real life, having mutual friends, or being networked by business. Perhaps more interesting is what drives Facebookers to ‘unfriend’. The obvious cases of defriending due to offensive comments or the ever-annoying ‘online salesman’ seem quite expected. But, it seems almost amusing to note that the second most common reason for removing a Facebook friend is “not knowing them well.” We guess that’s just the “friend requester’s remorse” coming to bear with the numerous Facebook users who add friends for physical attractiveness, or an attractively high friend count!

Take a look at the full infographic for yourself below. And Facebook us at OPUSfidelis to let us know if you Facebook for any other reason!