How Many Friends Do You Need?

How Many Friends Do You Need?

When I posed this question to my good friend Scott (a clinical psychologist, no less), he answered glibly: “All of them.”  I laughed, easily agreed, then shared the relevant research.

The number, apparently, is 3 to 5.

But a number of equal interest is Dunbar’s 150 – that is, the number of stable relationships that a human being can comfortably manage at one time. The figure is the brainchild of British anthropologist and evolutionary psychology Robin Dunbar who made the claim some 20 years ago. Two decades later, his analysis has yet to face serious challenge. Dunbar’s theory: the number of relationships that an animal can manage (humans included) is directly related to the size of their brain.

But today, with a swath of tools available to facilitate human connection, the question begs: “Are today’s virtual sharing networks expanding our social circle, and the quality of our relationships?” It’s a lively debate.

We’ll re-visit the debate in a moment, but first a bit about Dunbar, and his numeric hypothesis:

• 150 = casual friends, that is, the average number of people that, if you ran into them at a bar, you would feel comfortable having an impromptu drink with;
• 50 = close friends, the ones you might invite to a group dinner;
• 15 = supportive friends, the ones in whom you confide and turn to for support; and
• 5 = your close support group, that is, your best friends (often family members).

 Dunbar’s central thesis is this: historically, group sizes are remarkably stable. One of his favorite examples: throughout history, company sizes in professional armies have always hovered around 150 (from the Roman Empire to 16th century Spain to 20th century Soviet Union).

Which brings us back to today’s tech tools, and our central question: do today’s tools strengthen or weaken our social connections? The verdict is out.

What’s not in doubt is the importance of friendship. Writes Markham Heid, in a piece for time.com, “. . . [R]esearch has shown that socially isolated people are more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those with a solid social circle.” And sadly, Heid adds: “The number of Americans who say they have no close friends has roughly tripled in recent decades. . . . ‘Zero’ is also the most common response when people are asked how many confidants they have . . . . And adult men seem to be especially bad at keeping and cultivating friendships.”

Is the Internet expanding our social circle?

Dunbar himself is uncertain what will become of the current generation’s social ties, telling Maria Konnikova, who interviewed him for a piece in The New Yorker: “I don’t think we have enough evidence to argue either way. . . . It’s quite conceivable that we might end up less social in the future, which would be a disaster because we need to be more social—our world has become so large.”

Added Dunbar, again quoted by Konnikova: “The amount of social capital you have is pretty fixed. . . . It involves time investment. If you garner connections with more people you end up distributing your fixed amount of social capital more thinly so the average capital per person is lower . . . . Traditionally, it’s a sixty-forty split of attention: we spend 60% of our time with our core groups of fifty, fifteen, and five, and 40% with the larger spheres. Social networks may be growing our base, and, in the process, reversing that balance.”

And then there’s this noteworthy Dunbar observation, shared in an interview with Bloomberg.com: “In the end, we rely heavily on touch and we still haven't figured out how to do virtual touch. Maybe once we can do that we will have cracked a big nut.”

Dave Morin, one of Path’s co-founders, agrees with Dunbar that, as of yet, the new tools (e.g.,  Facebook and Twitter) have not expanded our social universe. Said Morin: “Dunbar’s work has helped to crystallize a debate among social media architects over whether even the most cleverly designed technologies can expand the dimensions of a person’s social world. As he puts it, ‘The question is, ‘Does digital technology in general allow you to retain the old friends as well as the new ones and therefore increase the size of your social circle?’ The answer seems to be a resounding no, at least for the moment.”

Is the Internet simply the latest utility supporting social life?

Remember the telephone? When it was introduced more than 160 years ago a common fear was its negative impact on human connection. After all, people would no longer be face-to-face, so the theory went, and social ties would suffer. Fast forward to 2015 and these same fears are surfacing. Today’s elders ask: With their heads buried in their phones, what will become of the Smartphone Generation?

Robert Cannon, FCC counsel and founder of Cybertelecom, thinks it’s an empty concern. Said Cannon: “The tension between the net and social engagement will vaporize in much the same way that thoughts about the telephone network vaporized and it came to be taken-for-granted. People do not ask if the telephone is an alienating social force. The phone is a utility supporting social life. Likewise, the net will come to be assumed as a utility for social life. How else would I know when church starts, when the game begins, where we are meeting for drinks, or what the weather for our trip might be?”

Karl Auerbach, CTO at InterWorking Labs agrees: “Ships and airplanes can be argued to be tools engendering either separation or closeness. Why should the internet be any different? I am continuously amazed at the ability of people to adapt the net to improve their interpersonal links.”

Good force or evil?  Naturally, time will tell. For now, though, I think I’ll shoot my friend(s) a quick text.

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