In a recent newspaper article, a British anthropologist Robin Dunbar has proposed that there is a theoretical cognitive limit imposed by our brain's neocortex, to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. This is called 'Dunbar number' and approximated closely to 150. Interestingly, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themselves if they met again. This theory is now being extensively used for research into Internet social networking sites.
Makes sense, right? We might be tempted to greedily keep adding those "friend requests" on our social networking sites to long-lost people whom we haven't heard in zillion years and even to passers-by on the road, but please hold back those instincts, curb your enthusiuasm, or put a damp sock in it - at least if the list is getting out of hand. It's time to take a closer look at who's truly a friend or acquaintance whom you can have a cup of coffee with or carry on a decent conversation for 10 mts, and those you have no idea who they are or how they look like or how they landed up in your site.
No offence or being the sourest grape on the vine here, but when I see 400 or 500 friends listed on way too many Facebook sites, I get these strange instincts to track these people, knock on their doors and actually find out how many of those are "true" pals, how many are not, and also if any of them have been lifted from the local telephone directory. Especially, I have one burning question for the guy who has hit the max. Facebook number of, honest am not making this up, 5000 friends - "Excuse me, Mr.Sociaholic, have you gone nuts?"
So, please people, if you have way too many neocortex-exceeding friends in the cyberworld, at least be aware that the social scientists are not buying it.
Makes sense, right? We might be tempted to greedily keep adding those "friend requests" on our social networking sites to long-lost people whom we haven't heard in zillion years and even to passers-by on the road, but please hold back those instincts, curb your enthusiuasm, or put a damp sock in it - at least if the list is getting out of hand. It's time to take a closer look at who's truly a friend or acquaintance whom you can have a cup of coffee with or carry on a decent conversation for 10 mts, and those you have no idea who they are or how they look like or how they landed up in your site.
No offence or being the sourest grape on the vine here, but when I see 400 or 500 friends listed on way too many Facebook sites, I get these strange instincts to track these people, knock on their doors and actually find out how many of those are "true" pals, how many are not, and also if any of them have been lifted from the local telephone directory. Especially, I have one burning question for the guy who has hit the max. Facebook number of, honest am not making this up, 5000 friends - "Excuse me, Mr.Sociaholic, have you gone nuts?"
So, please people, if you have way too many neocortex-exceeding friends in the cyberworld, at least be aware that the social scientists are not buying it.