DISQUS

Thibaut · 2 years ago

You are referring to Dunbar's number. Actually its a maximum of 147,8 personal connections.
I wrote a thesis (first of its kinf in french) "Facebook, Myspace, online social network services and new communication behaviors" and quoted this extract from Dunbar's "Co-Evolution Of Neocortex Size, Group Size And Language In Humans" :

"the suggestion here is simply that there is an upper limit on the size of groups that can be maintained by direct personal contact.
The second point is that the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained. This in no sense commits us to any particular way of structuring those groups"

Dunbar explained the emergence of larger groups (Nation-States for ex) by the use of the language as a social bonding mechanism. Still, many "primitive" groups are no larger than 150.

My thesis conclusion was that the SocNets are freeing the humans from their physiological restraints to communication. And yeah, that stalking cute girls on facebook is fun too.