Personal Networks
How big are people’s networks? This is a question that has always intrigued me. I recall learning about the Dunbar number years ago and often wonder how it applies to Facebook. I keep thinking that everyone has a deeper and wider network than me since they are always talking about their “friends” on the social media site. By the way, the Dunbar number is “a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships” (Wikipedia) or how many people you can reasonably know without it getting out of hand. The Dunbar number is 148.
I was recently delighted to read an article in The Economist on the Dunbar number and how it applies to Facebook. The Economist asked Facebook’s in-house sociologist Cameron Marlow about average size of a person’s Facebook friends (your personal advocates). He said that the average number is 120 which is somewhat close to the Dunbar hypothesis. No surprise that women have larger networks than men. The more interesting question posed by Marlow was how many individuals do people interact with on a frequent basis. I felt much better after hearing what he found:
“Thus an average man—one with 120 friends—generally responds to the postings of only seven of those friends by leaving comments on the posting individual’s photos, status messages or “wall”. An average woman is slightly more sociable, responding to ten. When it comes to two-way communication such as e-mails or chats, the average man interacts with only four people and the average woman with six. Among those Facebook users with 500 friends, these numbers are somewhat higher, but not hugely so. Men leave comments for 17 friends, women for 26. Men communicate with ten, women with 16.”
Essentially, people still keep their inner circles small and personal although they have wider networks of casual friends and distant acquaintances. If that is the case, why does Facebook and Twitter count your friends and followers?
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