Well actually, that's not true. As of today, March 10, 2009, I have 340 friends. Pretty sweet, huh? :)
But according to this Oxford professor named Robin Dunbar, a person cannot sustain a network of more than 148 friends and acquaintances. Apparently, it's just too stressful. Dunbar compares the human network dilemma to the primate network dilemma: "keeping track of who to groom--and why--demands quite a bit of mental computation. You need to remember who is allied with, hostile to, or lusts after whom, and act accordingly."
Right...
But Facebook is different, isn't it? Adding a new friend doesn't cost me money and doesn't cause me stress; in fact, adding a new friend can make me happy because I have reconnected with someone that I knew (or kind of knew) in the past and I have increased the size of my friend network, and thereby my bragging rights.
The Economist counters that most of my Facebook friends are not really friends, and in truth, Facebook friends are not even part of my network. (The Economist only considers a person to be in my network if I am interacting with that person...as opposed to anonymously perusing their profile. Some people call this stalking) Apparently, Facebook tracks how much we poke, comment, message, and IM one another. Here are the average number of contacts broken out by gender and number of friends:
- a guy with about 120 friends comments on about 7 of his friends' walls and chats or messages with about 4 of his friends. with 500 friends he comments on 17 walls and messages/chats with 10.
- a girl with about 120 friends comments on about 10 of her friends' walls and chats or messages with about 6 of her friends. with 500 friends she comments on 26 walls and messages/chats with 16.
1. We interact with a very small proportion of our Facebook friends. But somehow I still want to increase my number of friends. Why is that? Maybe Facebook friends have more in common with baseball cards than real friends. When I was 8, I couldn't buy enough baseball cards--I would go to the store every weekend and tear into a pack or two with my allowance. The players on the cards mattered for a few minutes, but by the next weekend I had forgotten about the old cards and wanted to get new ones.
Now, I love Facebook but would like to suggest that many of our Facebook friends are actually just contacts or acquaintances--not friends. (Well now I feel like Mr. Obvious)
2. Women/girls/gals have more vibrant social networking lives than men/boys/guys. I think that's great. That's part of why I like women: they really enjoy socializing and building relationships--even online relationships. I have heard that guys, alternatively, join social networking sites to accomplish specific goals or to complete certain tasks. Most common goals/tasks for guys: flirting, making business contacts, planning events, meeting social needs. I read an article a few months ago that said married men are by far the least likely demographic to have a Facebook page--and I conjecture that their disinterest in social networking stems from their disinterest in flirting. What do you think?
3. I don't get stressed out by adding new Facebook friends, but Dunbar's theory about a limit on the number of human intimate relationships fits my experience and fits the data. We may have quivers full of Facebook friends, but still we are close with only a few.
I like that. Even as Blackberry, Twitter, and Facebook have made relationships easier to maintain, our real capacity for relationship and our need for intimacy has not changed. We still search for a few intimate friends and family members with whom to share our lives.
And it follows that our capacity and need for spiritual intimacy has not changed. God is still there and still relevant whether I have 50 Facebook friends or 500.
10 comments:
Great post David! It really got me thinking...
At the end of the Economist article it concludes that facebook is not really about social networking but “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle” or in other words facebook helps us advertise ourselves more efficiently. What does this say about us humans these days? If we're advertising ourselves, for what profit? Are we turning to self-exploitation or self-commercialization? Or is this a self-centered thing (my life is so interesting/attractive that even acquaintances will want regular updates)? Or am I just being too cynical? You definitely focused on some of the positives from this article: that we still need community at a certain intimacy - but I can't help but be troubled by this whole thing.
Ok question #2: is blogging also a way we advertise ourselves these days? Part of me wants to be defensive about this since I also blog - I think that only a few people who know me or have known me on a relatively deep level actually read my posts. But I think part of me also does enjoy the fact that acquaintances could happen upon my blog and see how deep I am. Yikes.
Wow, interesting!
Hey Caroline, thanks for your questions. I hope things are going well at UCLA.
Q1: I had the same thought: whenever I post my status (on Facebook or Gmail) am I just putting myself out there in hope that someone will pay attention to me? Is it some sort of desperate cry for attention?
Sometimes it is. But I think sometimes status updates are simply that: quick updates on my life. Though I admit (and this dips into Q2) I use status updates to advertise myself or my blog or some cool video that I've found online. But to me, advertising just means that I'm sharing something I enjoy with the people in my social network--my Facebook acquaintances or blog followers or whatever you want to call them.
Q2: I think Blogging, like status updates, can be self indulgent or edifying, depending on how we steward our blogs. Some people use blogs to psychoanalyze themselves: running through their thoughts and struggles hoping that someone will pay attention. I don't think this is a good use of the blog format. It's important for people to reflect upon their inner thoughts and struggles--but not in a public blog.
Instead, blogs are best used to present thoughts, ideas, pictures, emotions, experiences, ect. that are important to us. I think it's great if we present our ideas well in our blogs (or in a way that would make others think we are deep). But I think the goal of our blogs should be to serve our readers by writing in a way that is interesting and thoughtful.
Final thought: newspapers and magazines across the country are struggling to stay afloat--largely due to the rise of online news sites and blogs. I think our blogs have the potential to be very powerful as media change and adapt. And we should steward this power in the right way.
Thanks for your thoughtful response David...
It's helpful for me to remember that facebook and blogging can serve a greater purpose than self-aggrandizement. I like the idea of "stewarding" my internet usage to serve others and glorify God... I might run with that :)
This is such an interesting concept to play with. I think the idea of the self-indulgent blog has been around for a while, and the construction of someone's identity via facebook has been also noted.
But how will this outer circle of acquaintances impact the quality of the inner circle of true friendships? Do we have the capacity to invest so much more energy, now, to broadcasting our life to the world, (and I do believe trying to find new relevance in that to our worlds) that we neglect relationships that are true and deep? Forgive me if I sound anti-technology! ;)
To add my own thoughts to Caroline's Q2, I admit I often fall into the trap of writing for attention. I think it easily becomes that and so I also appreciate David's reminder. I believe in purposed blogs and I hope that I can continue to post in ways that are purposed.
Thanks for these thoughts david!
Daniel/Caroline: you've made me think more about the difference between real friends and Facebook friends. It's an important distinction, and I want to make it clear.
To borrow from The Master Plan, I see Facebook Friends as part of our outer circle of influence(the 70). Friends, in contrast, are a more inner circle of influence (the 12). So it's important for us to keep our relationship priorities and expectations straight. For example: our friends will be there for us when we're having a tough time; our Facebook friends will read about our hard time on our status and then maybe post a comment on our wall. We confuse ourselves if we expect more from Facebook friends, or if we expect less from real friends.
But we also have the ability to impact our Facebook friends/blog readers/gmail status viewers by advertising websites that we like, posting thoughtfully and provocatively, and being shrewd managers our internet influence.
And the internet is a place of give and take. So while we influence others, we are also influenced by what our friends (and our Facebook friends) are up to. This can be a good thing or a not so good thing...
In a slightly different vein, I just read this article about how technology is changing long-distance relationships too, in some ways for the better:
http://relevantmagazine.com/features-reviews/life/16362-long-distance-love-lingers
but PROPOSING via internet?? I don't know about that...
OKAY! This is really interesting. I will be the first to say that I love technology. Sarah and I would skype weekly while I was in the Philippines.
Now i'm curious, what does it mean to you guys to be in relationship (romantic or platonic)? The old lines drawn by proximity are melting and I can be more "present" with someone via Twitter than if we shared a home, as this couple is doing in anticipation of ultimately being together.
Do you think long distance worked for this couple because it was a foreshadowing of what is to come? That is, they can do this chatting/webcam/twitter thing in anticipation of finally being physically present for each other?
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, or maybe it just reflects my tied-for-2nd love languages of physical touch and quality time - but I think physical presence is a necessary component of relationships.
I can understand the long distance thing if it's unavoidable and temporary - like a short term missions trip or my married roommate who is finishing up grad school - but I think the relationship ultimately has to be built on a foundation of physical togetherness (even if it's just a friendship.)
But it also really depends on the relationship. I can't conceive of being in a long-distance marriage since I think marriage should be based on mutual compromises and togetherness, rather than individual aspirations and separateness. But some distance (not just geographic) when dating can be a good thing especially when we're young and still forming our individual identities. On the other hand, an important part of getting to know someone does involve spending an extended amount of time together (so you can't just turn off your computer when you get annoyed or bored with him/her.) So although dating and friendship can be more flexible, I think they also have to be built on some measure of physical togetherness.
Ok... Back to the historiography of slavery. I appreciate a healthy distraction though :)
Great discussion!
I think that there is no right way to do a relationship. The kids in the article seemed to have a great long distance thing going on. But I think there are a lot of wrong ways to do a relationship, and those wrong ways can manifest (what a ridiculous word...) in a long distance OR a close proximity relationship.
But I think that, ultimately, relationships will always be about proximity. Relationships require the give and take of daily life--going to the store together, washing the dishes, sharing the bathroom.
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