Dunbar Number

Economist carried a very interesting article on Social networks. It being a relatively new concept which has become hugely popular in the last couple of years, I was naturally intrigued by the article. I am not a member of Facebook but a regular user of Orkut and do blog quite often, so the curiosity to understand the motivational and dynamics of these medium.

In hindsight when I try to summarize my experiences , they are very similar to what the economist article is saying here."That Facebook, Twitter and other online social networks will increase the size of human social groups is an obvious hypothesis, given that they reduce a lot of the friction and cost involved in keeping in touch with other people." Infact being shamefully lazy, that was my prime motivation to embrace e-mail , chat and social sites. Unlike a cell phone these things can always happen in the background, doesnt require a synchronous response, you can take your own sweet time to respond !.

The article then goes forward to introduce the Dunbar number, my orkut friend circle is now 183 and even though they are all people who I sincerely want to be in touch with, to drop in a hello every once in a while, its difficult and now armed with the Dunbar number I can always claim to all my friends who often complain that I dont stay in touch that dude, its all cause of the limited size of the human brain !.

"sociologists also distinguish between a person’s wider network, as described by the Dunbar number or something similar, and his social “core”." they come across that. There is something reinforing when you read something like that, you know its true, you have practices it, but just the sheer choice of academic vocabulary makes you sit up and take notice of it, even though you have known it all along.