Sure, you might have 900 friends on Facebook, but you’ll only rely on four of them in a crisis.
To say that the number of friends someone has on Facebook is an exaggeration of the amount of friends they have in real-life is something of an understatement.
Ask yourself this question, would you happily go for a pint with every single one of your Facebook friends?
If you would, then you’d be drinking an awful lot of pints because studies by Oxford University have revealed that Facebook users have an average of 155 friends, with females (166) tending to have slightly more friends than male users (145).
Those figures came about as a result of a number of surveys carried out by Oxford anthropologist Professor Robin Dunbar and associates. The surveys ultimately showed that while having a large network of friends in social media circles is handy for keeping in touch, face-to-face contact was the only way of maintaining close bonds with your peers.
The Oxford study, referenced in the Daily Telegraph, also revealed that Facebook users considered only 28% of their Facebook friends to be genuine friends and that they would only turn to four friends for help in a crisis.
“Social media certainly helps to slow down the natural rate of decay in relationship quality that would set in once we cannot readily meet friends face-to-face,” Dunbar said.
“But no amount of social media will prevent a friend eventually becoming ‘just another acquaintance’ if you don’t meet face-to-face from time to time.
“There is something paramount about face-to-face interactions that is crucial for maintaining friendships.
“Seeing the white of their eyes from time to time seems to be crucial to the way we maintain friendships.”
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