Study asks: How many Facebook friends are real friends?
The average Facebook user has about 150 friends on the social network, but that鈥檚 not the same thing as having 150 friends in real life, a finds. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar concluded that on average, only about 15 Facebook friends can be counted on to lend emotional support in difficult times, and only five Facebook friends could be counted as 鈥渃lose鈥� friends.
That doesn鈥檛 mean that Facebook friendships are worthless, though. Mr. Dunbar found that social networks allow people to maintain relationships even when they鈥檙e busy or live far away from their friends. Facebook can be a good way to make sure that friendships don鈥檛 fade away, the study concedes.
However, friendships need to be occasionally reinforced with face-to-face chats or they may fizzle out. That means social networks can help strengthen existing relationships 鈥� but they probably don鈥檛 allow people to expand their offline social circles. Even people with a thousand or more Facebook friends don鈥檛 have the time to cultivate so many social relationships.
Dunbar, who teaches evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, is famous for 鈥�,鈥� which estimates that people can only maintain about 150 stable social relationships 鈥� he suggests we simply don鈥檛 have the emotional energy to keep in touch with more people than that.
The Facebook study suggests that social networking is no exception. Even though Facebook and other networks make it much easier to communicate with friends, there鈥檚 no real correlation between the number of Facebook friends someone has and the number of offline friends they have. At best, Dunbar finds, social networks allow people to cultivate casual friendships, which don鈥檛 require much emotional investment. Think of people you鈥檇 be glad to chat with at a party, but wouldn鈥檛 turn to for support in a crisis.
Dunbar found that young people tend to have more Facebook friends, but that older people have more friends in real life.
鈥淎 likely explanation for this difference,鈥� , 鈥減robably lies in the fact that [social networks] typically encourage promiscuous 鈥榝riending鈥� of individuals who often have very tenuous links to [a person].鈥�
Dunbar also speculates that as young adults seek out new friends they鈥檙e more likely to send out many online friend requests 鈥渁s a means of testing out the opportunities available to them.鈥澛�
Dunbar also found that teenagers are relying more heavily on social networks and apps such as Snapchat, WeChat, Vine, Flickr, and Instagram instead of Facebook. The study speculated that teenagers find Facebook too open, and don鈥檛 like that their conversations and pictures are visible to 鈥渇riends of friends鈥� by default. Smaller, more private social networks may make it easier for teenagers to manage their real-life relationships.
