While doing some research today, I came across a couple of interesting topics and a famous Wiki page about Dunbar’s Number. Do you know what it is? Dunbar’s number was coined by a British Evolutionary Anthropologist named Robin Dunbar in which he states that the number of people with whom we can maintain a meaningful relationship is 150.
Dunbar’s number on WikiPedia
Dunbar’s number is a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar’s number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.
Dunbar’s number was first proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who theorized that “this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size … the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.” On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues such as high school friends with whom a person would want to reacquaint themselves if they met again. Wikipedia
How does this theory relate to social media connections? As stated on Wikipedia “larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group“.
Why we can’t have more than 150 friends
Have a look at the YouTube video below where Robin Dunbar explains this. If you are interested in learning more about this theory, have a look at the blog post Chris Brogen did a while ago regarding this topic: Beating Dunbar’s Number and a blog post on Social Media Today: Why Dunbar’s Number is Irrelevant.
What is your opinion Dunbar’s Number?
Hi Anton,
Really interesting. I’ve just upped my social connections and I wonder if there is ever enough. 🙂 However, this is a theory to ponder on. I want to push my limits but there is only so much you can retain. Thanks for the share!
Cheers!
Thu
Dunbars number makes a lot of sense. Many facebook “friends” really do come in at a much lower level than a true friendship. There is a lot of effort that goes into maintaining a real friendship to advance a social connection on facebook for example it would take a daily investment of time ultimately there can be only so many of those investements.
It makes really good sense.
thanks for the share.
I have always thought that 100 000’s are unmanageable. Even 1000’s. But some would say that in Social Media, one can create smaller filtered groups. My question then is why have so many friends when all you are interested in are a select handful.
It’s all about added value. What’s the point of following someone or someone following you when there is no added value.
BUt then again, who am I, seeing that Social Media Heavy weights like Chris Brogan Dispute this theory. Makes me wonder, if they agreed with it, how would they then justify their huge follow lists. You can’t.
We will always find a way to justify what we do.