According to the Dunbar number theory, we can maintain about 150 connections at a time. But is this rule true in today's social media world?
If you've ever been rejected by someone you liked saying that you can just be friends, you probably answered something like, "I already have enough friends." You, of course, meant that the emotional range of people is only enough for a certain number of friends.
It turns out this isn't just an excuse. There are well-defined limits on the number of friends and acquaintances that the average person can have. However, does this rule apply in today's digital world, where most people have social media profiles or online forums with thousands of followers? This is a difficult question.
According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the "magic number" is 150. Dunbar became convinced that there was a relationship between brain size and group size by studying non-human primates. This ratio was calculated using neuroimaging and determining the amount of time spent on grooming - an important social feature of primate behavior. Dunbar concluded that the size of the neocortex (in relation to the body) - the part of the brain associated with cognition and language - is related to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits the complexity that the social system can handle.
Dunbar and his colleagues applied this basic principle to humans by examining historical, anthropological, and contemporary psychological data on group sizes, including how large groups form before splitting or breaking up. They found a remarkable consistency of 150.
According to Dunbar and many other scholars he influenced, this rule holds true for early hunter-gatherer societies as well as a surprising array of modern groups: offices, communes, factories, housing estates, military organizations, English villages founded in 11 century, and even lists of people to whom you want to send Christmas cards with congratulations. then it is unlikely to last long or to be well-knit. (One consequence of the urbanization era may be that in order to avoid alienation or tension, city dwellers must form quasi-villages in their cities.)
According to Dunbar's theory, the number of connections that humans are able to "master" is 150, whether in early hunter-gatherer societies or in the modern workplace.
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DUNBAR'S NUMBER: WHY WE CAN MAINTAIN NO MORE THAN 150 RELATIONSHIPS
Dunbar's number: why we can only maintain 150 relationships
Admin Muz4in. Net 2019-17-10, 12:20 PM Tags
According to the Dunbar number theory, we can maintain about 150 connections at a time. But is this rule true in today's social media world?
If you've ever been rejected by someone you liked saying that you can just be friends, you probably answered something like, "I already have enough friends." You, of course, meant that the emotional range of people is only enough for a certain number of friends.
It turns out this isn't just an excuse. There are well-defined limits on the number of friends and acquaintances that the average person can have. However, does this rule apply in today's digital world, where most people have social media profiles or online forums with thousands of followers? This is a difficult question.
According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the "magic number" is 150. Dunbar became convinced that there was a relationship between brain size and group size by studying non-human primates. This ratio was calculated using neuroimaging and determining the amount of time spent on grooming - an important social feature of primate behavior. Dunbar concluded that the size of the neocortex (in relation to the body) - the part of the brain associated with cognition and language - is related to the size of a cohesive social group. This ratio limits the complexity that the social system can handle.
Dunbar and his colleagues applied this basic principle to humans by examining historical, anthropological, and contemporary psychological data on group sizes, including how large groups form before splitting or breaking up. They found a remarkable consistency of 150.
According to Dunbar and many other scholars he influenced, this rule holds true for early hunter-gatherer societies as well as a surprising array of modern groups: offices, communes, factories, housing estates, military organizations, English villages founded in 11 century, and even lists of people to whom you want to send Christmas cards with congratulations. then it is unlikely to last long or to be well-knit. (One consequence of the urbanization era may be that in order to avoid alienation or tension, city dwellers must form quasi-villages in their cities.)
According to Dunbar's theory, the number of connections that humans are able to "master" is 150, whether in early hunter-gatherer societies or in the modern workplace.
A sense of humor awakens in Dunbar when he hears that his name is becoming synonymous with a number - very unusual for a sociologist. “The strangest thing is that most of the people after whom certain things were named are already dead,” he notes dryly.
However, the number 150 is not the whole story. Other numbers also have a place in the social brain hypothesis.
According to the theory, only five people are in the closest circle - they are close people. This is followed by good friends (15 people), friends (50 people), significant contacts (150 people), acquaintances (500 people), and people you might know (1500 people). People migrate from one category to another, but the bottom line is that there is always room for new members.
Dunbar doesn't know why these categories are multiples of five. In his words, "The number five seems to be fundamental to primates in general."
Of course, all of these numbers actually represent a range. Extroverts tend to have a larger network of contacts, while introverts tend to focus on fewer friends. And women always have a little more contacts from the closest categories.
The closest circle is only five close people. The range then expands to 1,500 people you might recognize.
“What defines the categories in question in real life is the frequency with which you see people,” says Dunbar. "You have to devote time to social interactions every day, but it is usually limited."
Some organizations have taken these ideas on faith. The Swedish Tax Authority, for example, has restructured its offices to keep it at around 150 people.
Dunbar's theory discussion
Not everyone agrees with the social brain hypothesis. Some are skeptical about the idea of a "magic" number that determines social interaction.
However, it can come in handy when it comes to making sense of communities and evolution.
“While there are many factors that can limit the number of relationships that can be created and sustained, this research helps us better understand … and measure the impact of such variables,” says Cristina Acedo Carmona, an anthropologist and economist at the University of León in Spain.
Among those who agree that Dunbar's number can be determined, there are those who dispute the result of 150. Studies of various social groups in the United States show that the number of connections of the average American is 290. However, it can change under the influence of various factors.
One argument is that the number of social ties is usually not distributed (or shaped like a bell curve). Consequently, a large number of contacts of several people can affect the average.
For example, if a person is wealthy enough to hire helpers to partially manage their relationships - or to entrust some of their emotional labor to others - they may be less limited by the number of relationships they can maintain at a comfortable level. As with so many aspects of social life, super connected people have super privileges.
The number of contacts of some social groups in the United States can reach 290.
Dunbar's number has also been criticized for its methodological background. The brain size of primates depends not only on social complexity: they can be influenced by factors such as nutrition. The British-Dutch team of scientists said that although the neocortex is limited in size, social opportunities can be expanded in different cultural settings with the help of technology. One example is the use of large mobile phone contact lists by low-income Jamaicans. These lists, which involve the careful cultivation of even casual relationships, often contain far more than 150 contacts.
Indeed, social capital may play a special role for people who do not have other forms of capital, as highlighted in a comparative study by Acedo Carmon in northern Ghana and Oaxaca, Mexico. High biodiversity, remote mountainous areas and the influence of Spanish colonialism on ethnic identity have all contributed to the creation of small circles of trust in Oaxaca, which are mostly composed of close relatives. But northern Ghana's scarcer ecological resources have made interethnic cooperation and wider trust circles more important to survival. Thus, “the emphasis on brain size and cognitive limitations may be oversimplified,” as Acedo Carmona emphasizes.
The Dunbar number can be successfully applied to the study of pre-modern societies or middle-income groups in modern Western societies. The research that supports it is biased towards Western, educated, industrialized, wealthy and democratic societies.
But even they are becoming more complex under the influence of Internet culture.
Online presence
One of the modern versions of campfire gathering is Slack, an app that has served as an email replacement, delighting communications professionals and exhausting overwhelmed employees since 2013. One of those taking advantage of Slack's capabilities is American digital designer Carly Ayres.
A few years ago, Ayres created a Slack group for fellow designers, 100s Under 100. It currently has 84 channels moderated by 14 admins.
Ayres sees Dunbar's number as intuitive, given her observations of online communities. “I really believe in the truth of the idea that the brain can only hold a limited amount of information. In my opinion, the more you know about a person, the better your relationship, but the number of connections you can have is also limited,”she explains.
Even online, you can maintain strong relationships, but only if you don't have many.
The 100s Under 100 strives for a balance between size and proximity, splitting channels into smaller ones when they get too large. The group also periodically removes inactive members - a more deliberate form of how each allows certain relationships to disappear due to the lack of time or energy needed to maintain them.
More and more people are adhering to the "Less = better" principle when it comes to social life on the Internet. Scale can be one of the problems with social media that dominate our lives right now. And for some Facebook users, the smaller and more secret a group is, the better.
Research by Dunbar and colleagues suggests that online relationships are similar to offline relationships in terms of numerical constraints. “When people look at the structure of the online gaming world, they get pretty much the same categories as we do in all other contexts,” he says. "And it looks as if it is precisely these features of the human mind that place limits on the number of people you can interact with at any time."
Dunbar and colleagues also conducted Facebook research, using factors such as the number of groups in public and private posts to correlate the number of connections with their strength.
When people have more than 150 Facebook friends or 150 Twitter followers, Dunbar argues, that represents the usual external categories of contacts (or connections with low rates): 500 and 1500. For most people, intimacy may simply not be possible outside of 150 connections. “Digital media - and I mean phones - is really just giving you another mechanism to connect with your friends,” says Dunbar.
There is a balance between the number of connections you have and their strength.
Even the ability to be anonymous online, according to Dunbar, does not differ significantly from the offline world. He compares anonymous Internet interactions to confession in the Catholic Church. It's not a close relationship, but they do recognize the benefits of privacy among quasi-strangers.
“It's hard to cry on a virtual shoulder,” Dunbar explains calmly. "They may or may not listen to you."
From this point of view, the non-physical, unreal nature of Internet relationships means that they cannot be compared with what we have in the real world. Personal relationships, with all the non-verbal information that is so important to communication, remain paramount.
But Dunbar's research suggests generational differences in this regard. Individuals aged 18-24 have much more social media on the Internet than those aged 55 and over. And the superiority of physical contact in the social brain hypothesis may be less relevant to young people who have never known life without the Internet - for them digital relationships can be as meaningful as analog ones.
Also, online groups like 100s Under 100 can't last forever; Ayres initially assumed the group would disband within a few years.
The fact that most people have a limited number of friends makes sense. However, it is unclear if this ability is expanding or diminishing due to the ever-changing ways people interact online.