Scientific American - September 2018

104 Scientific American, September 2018

SOURCES: INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION, WORLD TELEC

OMMUNICATION/ICT DEVELOPMENT REPORT AND DATABASE

(Internet use data

); PEW RESEARCH CENTER (

social media data

); “DO ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA CUT THROUGH THE CONSTRAINTS THAT LIMIT THE SIZE OF OFFLINE

SOCIAL NETWORKS?” BY R.I.M. DUNBAR, IN

ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE,

VOL. 3, ARTICLE NO. 150292; JANUARY 2016 (

Facebook friend survey data

)

Percent of Respondents

0–25

0

00

1–2 3–4

1–2 3–4 5–7 8–10 11–15 16+

5–10 11–15 16–20 21–30 31–40 41–50 51–75 76–100 101+

01 0 20 3 0

26–50 51–75 76–100 101–200 201–300 301–400 401–500 501–600 601–700 701–800 801–900 901–1,000 1,001+

People in Support Group

Number of Facebook Friends

People in Inner Circle

2012 2014 2016 2018

U.S.

Percent of U.S.

Adults Using

Social Media

(2012–2018)

Facebook

Instagram

Pinterest

Snapchat

LinkedIn

Tw i t t e r

WhatsApp

1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010

100

80

60

40

20

0

WWWWWorlWWWWorldWWWWWWWWWWoWorlWWorlrldrlldldldldddddddd

Percent of Population

Using the Internet

(each gray line represents

a country)

GRAPHIC SCIENCE
Text by Mark Fischetti | Graphic by Jen Christiansen

Peak Friends

Even with social media,

we max out at

150 real relationships

H mans are e tremey socia creat res. Anthropologists main-
tain that our hypersocial nature has helped us become a unique-
ly dominant species. Now social media allows a large per-
centage of people to communicate effortlessly worldwide ( large
graph ), something no other animal can do.
Yet despite running up hundreds of friends on Facebook
and thousands of followers on Twitter, we are fooling ourselves,
scientists say. We can really only maintain about 150 meaning-
ful relationships at any time. Study after study confirms that
most people have about five intimate friends, 15 close friends,

50 general friends and 150 acquaintances ( green bars ). Robin

Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist now at the University

of Oxford, who had showed this pattern convincingly in

the 1990s, revisited his old conclusions in a recent study of

several thousand Face book users. He found that despite social

media’s explosion, our network of significant contacts still

maxes out at around 150. This threshold is imposed by brain

size and chemistry, as well as the time it takes to maintain

meaningful relationships, Dunbar says. “The time you spend,”

he adds, “is crucial.”

The Facebook Test

In a 2016 study by Dunbar, 2,000

adults who said they use social

media regularly were asked how

many Face book friends they had.

They were then asked how many

they would consider intimate

friends (their inner circle) and how

many they would go to for advice

or sympathy in times of emotional

stress (their support group). The

replies mirror surveys from before

social media’s rise: most individuals

›DÿyDU¹ùïŠÿyŸ ́Dïy†àŸy ́måj

15 people in their suppor t group

and 150 acquaintances.

Rising Internet Use