Among  the predictable stress-inducing aspects of Facebook is rejecting a friend request, which 32% of respondents said made them feel guilty or uncomfortable, and the feeling pressure to be entertaining without offending certain groups off friends. Also, while participating in Facebook can be stressful, so can the decision to bail on it for fear of missing out on things or offending people, the researchers found.

"Like gambling, Facebook keeps users in a neurotic limbo, not knowing whether they should hang on in there just in case they miss out on something good," said Charles in a statement.

Not surprisingly, the rise of social networking has launched something of a research frenzy on the topic. Among other research efforts in this field, University of Colorado Denver Business School studied why people unfriend each other on Facebook, and learned that the . Other studies have focused on the .

in Network World's LANs & Routers section.