Social Networks Artificially Enhance People Skills

A recent academic study at the University of Oxford in Great Britain has shown that normal human beings are limited in engaging and sustaining social, acceptable relationships at an average of 150 friends. The study also takes a swing at the artificial environment created by social networks and the false illusion that a person can have thousands of friends.

Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford, offering some quick and short conclusions on his soon to be published study, has estimated the “150 friends” limit after a long academic activity in which he analyzed relationships in various environments and time spans ranging from ancient villages to modern office cubicles.

The study shows that the human neocortex, the part of the brain in charge of language and thinking, cannot handle more than 150 interacting relationships. Prof. Dunbar has also studied the impact social networks had on this number and came to the conclusion that the “follower/friend count” on some profile pages was very far from the real truth.

“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” said Prof. Robin Dunbar for The Sunday Times. “People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.”

His estimation, called “The Dunbar number,” is also considered to be higher in females, due to their better social and interactivity skills. “There is a big [gender] difference though... girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together,” the professor's study shows.

Professor Dunbar's study will be published over the course of this year.