While all the social media experts are chanting “engage, engage, engage” with more and more friends, social scientist anthropologist types, like
Robin Dunbar (study circa 1992) might say: that’s fine, as long as the magic number (150) isn’t exceeded. Why? Because the neo-cortex apparently limits humans to being able to keep up with only as many as 150 group members at a time. So, not only are humans limited in the amount of people they can really engage with at once, but based on the evidence, it really seems a bit irresponsible and pointless to try.
It’s instinctively defensive to retort with the argument that Dunbar is too outdated for social media, which might be easily supported by the fact that most of the so-called “serious” social media users boast way more than 150 friends–usually like in the thousands.
But to address the first part of that counter-argument, Dunbar isn’t alone in asserting such group size limits: PC World just published an article titled: Study: Friends Hard to Keep Up With on Twitter, Facebook, which basically sites the same 150 friend limit, or saturation point, which suggests that no matter how much we all like to brag about our thousands of friends, there’s really only space for a lucky 150.
But does anyone really need to quarrel here? What major frustration do social media enthusiasts struggle with? Please don’t say, My grandma has usurped my Android or The impulse to gobble potato chips and tweet simultaneously. Those we’ve interviewed say the grueling part of being “social” is sifting through the noise. And its common sense that most of it is coming from the little known hitchhikers that have been pick up along the way. Do they truly offer much else besides an extra notch to our social friends list. For the simple fear of worrying that our growing volume of vociferous vagabonds will take offense if squelched, most social networkers seem to just tolerate the interruptions.
But if we can’t realistically have 150 friends (please don’t confuse friends and audience), nor tolerate the excess weight from our associate baggage, what can we do? The best move is to be more discerning about who’s included in your social network. If there’s more than 150 people wanting to friend you, it’s time to start channeling them to a Fan Page, where it’s easier to cater to the masses.
