Social Circus

While the trend of making friends on social networking sites might have caught the fancy of youngsters,most of them still rely on the good old friends with whom they have been trading secrets since childhood to discuss issues that range from prospective boyfriends/girlfriends,family problems or even making career choices.

Robin Dunbar,professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University,has conducted research revealing that while social networking sites allow us to maintain more relationships,the number of meaningful friendships is the same as it has been throughout history. In a research paper he states,“We may be able to amass 5,000 friends on Facebook but humans’ brains are capable of managing a maximum of only 150 friendships.”

Nikita Joshi,a 23-year-old software engineer,studying for her Masters degree in the US,doesn’t deny the fact that social networking has altered the way best friends have been perceived. “What social networking has smartly done is that it has segregated best friends. And even though we have friends at our workplace,at college and even in our neighbourhood,we always rely on a few friends. Social networking has however let us stay in touch with not just our closest friends but with a social circle of friends with whom you can discuss passing issues.”

Picture this. Dunbar has also developed a theory known as ‘Dunbar’s number’,which claimed that the size of our neocortex — the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language — limits us to managing social circles. “While you may have 1,500 friends but when you look at traffic on sites,you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” he writes in his research that will be published later this year.

Dunbar derived the limit from studying social groupings in a variety of societies — from neolithic villages to modern office environments. He also states in his studies that the ‘Facebook effect’ has not stretched the size of social groupings.

However,physicist Cesar Hidalgo from the University of Notre Dame and sociologist Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile have investigated the persistence of relationships within the cell phone social network. They found that the reason why there is a difference between friends and best friends is that texting and calling are two of the main influencing factors to divide the two categories of people. The data was generated from monitoring two million people and over eight million calls for a year.

All this said and done what social networking definitely has done is that it has helped people stay in touch. “While some friendships die natural deaths owing to the lack of communication,I am in touch with my closest friends through Facebook,” says Nishta Jain,a first year business management student,adding,“I and four of my friends who have been together since our school days,have our own group on Facebook,wherein we regularly discuss our personal and professional lives. Rather than diluting the best friend concept,social networking has rather diversified it.”

Friendship Facts
* Girls show a 60 per cent better average at maintaining relationships between best friends than boys.v* Only 12 per cent youngsters use social networking sites to discuss their personal lives with friends online.
* A major reason for best friends staying in touch with one another even over long distances is the fact that they keep calling,emailing,or texting one another at least 45 per cent more than their other friends.