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Human Brain Places Limit On Twitter Friends
Hugh Pickens writes "Back in early '90s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar began studying human social groups, measuring the number of people an individual can maintain regular contact with, and came up with 150 — a number that appears to be constant throughout human history — from the size of neolithic villages to military units to 20th century contact books. But in the last decade, social networking technology has had a profound influence on the way people connect, vastly increasing the ease with which we can communicate with and follow others, so it's not uncommon for tweeters to follow and be followed by thousands of others. Now Bruno Goncalves has studied the network of links created by three million Twitter users over four years. After counting tweets that are mutual and regular as signifying a significant social bond, he found that when people start tweeting, their number of friends increases to a saturation point until they become overwhelmed. Beyond that saturation point, the conversations with less important contacts start to become less frequent and the tweeters begin to concentrate on the people they have the strongest links with. So what is the saturation point? The answer is between 100 and 200, just as Dunbar predicts. 'This finding suggests that even though modern social networks help us to log all the people with whom we meet and interact,' says Goncalves, 'they are unable to overcome the biological and physical constraints that limit stable social relations (PDF).'"
Most humans own an average of 4 cars in a lifetime.
Hey, a good idea for a poll to indicate the age of active /.-ers.
Other than that, by this logic and in average, I must be already in my mid-life. Phew, I was under the impression I'm too old already - still enough time for a mid-life crisis.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Wait.. were you just making that fact up as an example, or is this really verifiable?
I ask because I currently own 3 vehicles. I've owned *counts* 6 in my lifetime and I'm 28 years old. Oh, and I'm planning on another purchase this year.
I realise that's anecdotal, but I can't think of a single person I know who has been driving for > 10 years and isn't already past or on their way to more than 4.
Without modifying ourselves it's improbable that any technology can change the limits our biological make-up presents.
.: Max Romantschuk
150 twitter 'friends' is equivalent to 150 trillion Facebook friends, because Facebook friends have no value.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
If all humans lived like your rather narrow social circle then maybe that would be relevant.
In one IRC chatroom alone there could be 150+ regular chatters. Across a dozen of these there could be well over 1000.
It's not difficult to be in contact with hundreds of different people every day for months.
Averages are tricky. There are a lot of people on this earth who will never own a car. Most of them, in fact. Four does seem very low for the regular car buying American in my opinion.
That's like 50 times more than I could ever handle.
But... the future refused to change.
By importance? Importance is very difficult to quantify for any study because it's completely subjective.
I'd say that number is even pushing it. I have approximately 175 people or so on my facebook list. It includes but is not limited to; real life friends, immediate family, extended family, co-workers, former classmates and people I've met online. Out of those 175 or so (plus co-workers I don't have on my facebook), Id say in a given week I probably interact with about 40 in any meaningful manner both in real life and online. Perhaps I'm the exception but I highly doubt it...
the monkeysphere! :)
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
I guess, with twitter and fb, the monkeysphere is expanding, and you cannot cope with it unless the brain is modified
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"This fifinding suggests that even though modern social networks help us to log all the people with whom we meet and interact, they are unable to overcome the biological and physical constraints that limit stable social relations," say Goncalves and co.
I don't think so. Buying cars is a costly task (for most people) while making friends in a social network in theory should be almost trivial. So if the number of active friends caps out at 100-200, it's a constraint of something other than the initial cost of making an additional friend.
For a typical American, I'd agree. As someone living in Europe, I'd say 4 is about right over a lifetime. My wife, who was born and grew up in a major European city (~500k people) did not even get her driver's license until she was 40. She had no need for a car or for driving one, we have something called public transportation. I realize this is a hard concept for Americans to understand (sarcasm aside, I am an American... just living abroad for many years). I actually *gasp* lived abroad without a car for ~5 years. Many people I work with do not own or drive a car, and I live and work in a very technically modern EU country.
How is meaningful defined? If you mean regular social contact with then it's easy to talk to 1000 people in a day.
If you are talking about talking to 1000 people in different chatrooms on a regular basis thats also easy but it would probably be on a weekly basis.
How do we determine what a meaningful conversation is? Is this conversation you and I are having meaningful? How would I judge?
This seems kind of like making the tired point that 'people in Europe travel WAY more than Americans and Americans are durr durr durr durr", which really tends to forget the point that there are plenty of european countries crammed into the size of an American state, while I can drive for six days in a line and still be in the same country and have to cross an ocean to reach anything but North and South America. Likewise, if I lived down the street from where I work, I wouldn't care about a car, either. However, if my employer is on the other side of town, I can't really add four or five hours a day to my commute just for the joy of riding on a bus or light rail filled with smelly homeless people and meth heads shooting up in the back.
I don't have a car (I gave it away). I've never had a license. I have no interest in ever having one. I don't care to drive. I hate driving. I hate traffic. I hate commutes. I'm in a fortunate position where I don't have to worry about such things - but I'm in a very *rare* position.
The Dunbar hypothesis isn't a limit on group size. It argues that an individual can maintain only some 100-200 regular social contacts. Yet if, as the article suggests, a Twitter user stabilizes at a maximum of 150-200 regularly-maintained contacts, they're using up most, if not all, of their Dunbar-space on Twitter alone. So does this mean that people with 150-200 regular Twitter contacts must lose their pre-Twitter real-world regular contacts, or that their pre-Twitter contacts must become Twitter contacts? That seems a bit much to assume without evidence.
I suppose further research will explore how the real-world-and-non-Twitter social life of the twitterati changes as they near their Dunbar limit on Twitter. Perhaps, as the article boldly suggests, "social networks [do] not change human social capabilities" (Conclusions, 7) and the Dunbar limit is indeed resistant to technological circumvention. But this article doesn't make that clear. By not examining the full social space of its subjects, the study does not actually address the possibility that Twitter has increased the number of regular contacts - of all types - that an individual can maintain.
human brains also couldn't deal with speeds over 75mph. human brains adapt, that is the game. under estimating this is total bull
Content + Container; Content = Container; Content â Container... which is the question?
The point is maintaining social contact. 'Knowing about' or 'remembering names' isn't the same as 'regularly speaking to and keeping up-to-date with'.
Your account is by far, very abnormal. BTW, by any chance, as so many do, are you confusing ownership with leasing? Many people completely confuse the two, which of course, completely changes the perception of actual ownership. If you have been leasing, which is likely, then your actual ownership is probably zero.
For ten years and six cars, that's basically a new vehicle every two years which falls on a typical lease schedule. I seriously suspect you've deluded yourself into believing you've owned six cars when in fact you've owned zero.
I live in one of the EU countries. I'm 41 and I owned 7 cars. I drive since legal age, although initially not out of any real necessity, just because I could and I love to drive. Two of my cars were brand new when I purchased them. One was a mistake.
I'm curious about the methodology of the study that gave rise to this factoid. If there was any.
I was under the impression that twitter friends had the same (lack of) value than Facebook's ...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
You own 3 cars at the same time? Sounds quite unusual to me. Or do you count all the cars of your family? In that case, the average is of course lower because you have to divide the number of cars by the number of people in your family.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You're not alone there tbh. I have around 30 facebook friends, including family members and such, and I interact with about 4 of them on a frequent basis. I simply see no value in trying to "befriend" people whom I have nothing in common, nor do I value pointless chatter that much either. There's no way I could keep up with 150 people.
for anybody!
I just got over my mid-life crisis and now I find out I've been dead for at least 200yrs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's not difficult to be in contact with hundreds of different people every day for months.
There's a huge difference between people inside your MonkeySphere and people inside your chat room.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
your approach is wrong. for any travel that is bigger than an american state, you already use aircraft. it is not logical or economic to haul over a car that long a distance. not surprisingly, europeans do the same - take the plane, or the train to those distances. the difference in between you and europeans is that, for big distances, they can take not only the plane but the fast trains too. rarely when they need to go on a family trip they use their car, and this is no different from americans, nor more frequent.
so, the approach of the grand parent stays valid.
one other point of worth mention is your hilarious misconceptions about commuting for 5 hours on a bus. really really funny. no such thing in europe.
Read radical news here
He's most likely making the number up or not using Americans for his population.
In America, the average time between cars is ~five years, according to insurance company and EPA estimates.
So I think the GP is trying to say we live only 20 years after we start driving.
Cars make more sense in low density environments and less sense in high density ones.
I'll let you use your big brain, Brad, and figure out which better matches America vs. Europe.
150 twitter 'friends' is equivalent to 150 trillion Facebook friends, because Facebook friends have no value.
150 twitter friends is equal to one friends phone number.
maybe its just me, but if im not texting-calling you then really we aren't friends, we are acquaintances
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
That was Bill Clinton
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
europe has considerable low density settlements which are tied to main network through rail and public transportation and people are as much happy.
Read radical news here
Like with an RSS feed, twitter and facebook can be full with single-sided interaction. Does that count as "friendship"? Or "social interaction"?
Some even claim twitter and facebook are replacing RSS, since the idea is the same; you subscribe to updates of something (or someone) you find interesting. The option to interact is there, but doesn't have to be used.
that's just plain wrong, which I verified with Google in 30 seconds. Furthermore it doesn't have anything to do with human capabilities or wants as is the point here. It has everything to do with economic means and cultures. Did you know in the 60s people used to buy cars every two years on average? Mostly because the cars sucked, sure they were a few classics mixed in there, but those weren't the bulk.
Not really. I lived in the middle of nowhere Germany for a while, and calling the public transport options "limited" would be a compliment. The closest train station was 16 km away and buses came maybe about 5 times a day, with the last bus leaving the station at around 5:30 pm, and that was on the weekdays. On Saturday there was 1 bus, and only in 1 direction. Sundays and holidays there was nothing. I opted to live without a car(fortunately I love cycling and most of the winters I was there were incredibly mild), but I would venture well north of 90% of households had a car. It was simply a necessity. A lot of rural Germany is like this, public transport is fairly well developed in the central and northwest parts of the country, but outside of that it's not much better than the US in that regard.
Monstar L
firstly, if you really opt to live in middle of nowhere, you would experience the same in ANY country. but secondly, germany is not a country that prioritizes public transportation as much as the others. first, it had a very treasured auto industry. and, it had roads built to enable the cars that are produced by it to go to full capacity. what was the speed limit there ? 200 km/h ? you cant find top notch public transport in a country that prioritizes its cars, and in the middle of nowhere.
Read radical news here
I think it's just us, increasingly. Is a Twitter message directed at someone really less personal than an SMS? I see no reason why it should.
Dilbert RSS feed
Nobody can. There's only so many hours in a day. Even if you spend 14 hours a day -only- being social (=100% of your waking time minus the time you eat and visit the bathroom etc), then 150 friends would still only get 10 minutes a day each.
And most people do other things than just be social, you know, stuff like holding a job or studying, shopping, cooking, doing housework, showering, etc.
A more realistic (but still high!) time-available estimate is 3-4 hours on weekdays and 10 hours on weekends, which gives you 35 hours/week, or 2 minutes a day for your friends.
On Facebook, "friend" tends to mean "someone I met at some point in my life and can recognize".
Internet has changed our life so much.I'll leave internet for a while.
World population is around 6,500 million. World car "population", slightly more than 800 million. (Both according to google) That is, there currently is about 1 car every 8 people.
As a very rough approximation, let's assume the average person is in mid-life and trends will continue as-is. Based on that, 4 people will own 1 car over a lifetime, inverse to what the GP postulates.
Or put another way: Over a person's lifetime the average car will own 4 humans.
I have a big problem with keeping in mind all those human interactions. This number of 150 seems too big for me. Although I have no problems with new acquaintances, it's difficult to me to keep them all in mind. Maybe it's a reason why I don't as interested in facebook, twitter and all that as all people are.
So many hours in the day, but I don't need to talk to each of my friends every day, so my time spent with friends doesn't need to fit into 10-minute increments.
I can spend a couple of hours with each of 150 friends every couple of weeks, on average, and still fit into your 14-hour social day.
But I don't average my social time across my "friends." Some friends might only consume a few minutes per month of conversational maintenance; better friends will use more time.
There's no good reason why I can't spend 5 or 10 minutes, per month, talking to my not-so-close friends, and a few hours a week with each of my good friends, and still have time for eating, showering, and work in a day. Even if I've got 150 "friends," and neglect none of them absolutely.
(On another note, I'm personally nowhere near as social as that and don't have any desire to be, but let's not let that get in the way of hypothetical conjecture...)
Kid-proof tablet..
Dunbar postulated that the number is only reached in situations of strong environmental and economic pressure, like survival villages or military forces. Such a large social network takes a lot of effort in term of social grooming, so in most other cases it makes more sense for the individual to keep the number of social interactions down.
See the wikipedia entry for Dunbar's number.
That's what restricts me in the use of social media. At the end of a long day after work, cooking+eating, more work, etc. I often lack the energy to go through a long list of updates.
Maybe when all the difficult projects are done I can reserve time for regular use of twitter/blog/etc.
home
He used "most" and "average" together, which just sounds wrong and is ambiguous. Does it mean own simultaneously, i.e for half their life they have none and for the rest they have eight? You could certainly interpret it that way.
Take his phrase and s/4/2/ and s/cars/legs/
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Cracked.com is not a research website, but a website which puts forward stuff in a witty way. How did you come to the conclusion that I thought that cracked was the researcher?
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
When we say 150 connection is the limit, it means 150 connections matter.
you may have 500 facebook friends, and they all may get your status updates, and many of them may reply to you too,
But if one of them dies, or goes away from your friends list, you will not be aware unless that person is in your "monkeysphere".
Even if you are an agony aunt, and reply to 100 different people in a week, you forget about them immediately. How many will you remember actually?
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Some time back, I worked as a retail store manager. One of the things that the company made a point of was that there were studies that indicated that on average people know 250 people well enough to impact their buying decisions. The point they made was that if somebody had a negative experience in your store, it was not just that one person whose sales you might lose as a result. Knowing how some of the other numbers they used got distorted to make whatever point they were pushing, I suspect that somewhere along the line this 150 people number got stretched to 250.
However, having looked at the group dynamics of many organizations over my life time that is the range that fits with my experience. Organizations that are designed to be social interactions for their members tend to divide between 200 and 500, either intentionally or because of internal disputes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
True, if we didn't sleep we could tweet a lot more.
So your family was wealthy and owned many automobiles. Wasn't the point of this comment to prove you AREN'T an anomaly?
It's like xkcd's comments on graphs without an axis or labels.
Lifetime... that's a lot of years! Let's say you "die young" at 50. You got your first car "late" at 20. So AC's figure of 4 cars = 7.x years per car, *each*. That's kinda long. Many people don't buy new anymore. So now we're asking about the quality of the used ones we get.
Americans are quite happy with the cultural tradition of the clunker to get you past a year. You pick it up for $500 and it somehow passes inspection.
The other part is the word "own" - families usually have His & Hers plus sometimes the kid's.
So I propose the figure of 12 cars closer to the mark "per lifetime".
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I live in the UK, got my full license at 19. I'm now 27 and I've owned.. 4 cars, one motorbike, and one company car. I actually took my current car off the road though because I'm fed up of fuel prices, and decided to focus on saving for a while. I used to hate public transport, but it saves me about £2000 a year, and it's actually kind of relaxing not doing the driving. The only problem I've had so far was missing my stop when I read an eBook or browse the web on my phone :p In my case I can just borrow a company car if I really need a car though, which made the decision easier.
which is totally what she said
Ah, the response of a typical Slashdot dweller, I suppose.
It is not a matter of memorizing screen names or trivial facts about others--the human mind is substantially adept at that. The point is establishing personal relationships with those people, emotional and psychological bonds, and interacting with them socially in a significant way.
Posting a message to a chat-room with hundreds of people is not the same as interacting with each one personally, individually; even if you managed to remember all their screen names.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Cars can be really cheap, and some people just sell them on because they're bored and want something new. One of the guys here at work probably gets a new car once a year at least, because he's always modding the hell out of them and either they break and he gets fed up, or he crashes them. One woman here at work gets a new car something like every 3 months because her husband likes to buy them cheap down south and sell them for a profit up here.
I've been given two old cars (one by parents, one by uncle), and bought 2 cheap used cars and a used motorbike, and I'm only 27. I love to drive, and I don't like the depreciation on new cars. I spent less in two years on my current car (something like £5000 including the initial purchase, maintenance, insurance and tax) than it would cost to buy a super-cheap new car (about £6000). So I'd do just as well to buy a used car every few years than buy a new one. Even if I don't sell on the used one I'd still come out ahead. One of the cars I bought died after 2 months - it was an incredibly studpi purchase though - I'm never going to buy a car again where the previous owner has fixed up the engine with a bunch of his mates rather than just getting it done professionally.
which is totally what she said
Again, I believe he's confused. Most people will only ever own two homes in their lifetime. You will live in many more. Chances are, even if he wasn't leasing, he simply traded in on a vehicle he was making payments on. I doubt he "owned" them outright.
Perhaps this is splitting hairs on the definition of owning. Meaning, owning outright verses making payments. Technically, you don't own until you hold that title.
I have 140 more spots I can fill!
sig not found
but most of the time why would we care what person A thinks about person B even if they tell us?
Unless it influences or has to do with how you think about them or they think about you, why would you remember it?
Because it does influence how they think about you. If Gnivad thinks Tilda is stuck-up, then siding with Tilda on an issue may make you look stuck-up to Gnivad.
The problem is not keeping up with people online, it's that you never really find the time to spend with them. I particularly noticed it when I started studying, I had my "old friends" and my "study friends" which were completely disjoint social circles. Friday and saturday night there was different things going on, I could either be here or there. Take a thing as a birthday party, most people have it on saturday and there's only 52-53 of them each year, with 200 friends there's likely to be 4 a week. Or cabin trips or any other for of social gathering. You just can't keep a real social contact with that many people.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
My grandpa is at best low end middle class (and that's a stretch even), yet he owns 3 vehicles and has owned many more. He gets really old used vehicles, makes some repairs, and does all sorts of trading around with them. Perhaps the GPs parents did the same sort of thing. Still outside the norm, but no need to be rich.
SSC
what you are saying, actually supports my argument.
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your approach is wrong. for any travel that is bigger than an american state
Which american state? Alaska? Because for anything less than 1,000 miles it is less expensive and time consuming to drive than to take the airplane. For my family, a plane ride would be about $2,000 to pretty much anywhere. That's the cost of an entire vacation including driving costs. Airplane travel is beyond the means of the middle class american.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
More anecdotal evidence. I'm 41, currently own two cars, and have owned 13 cars so far.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Are you of the opinion that people only buy new cars? I have owned 13 cars in my life and only three of them have been new cars. I never really expected to EVER buy a new car, two of them were for my wife. Most americans go through far more than 4 cars in a liftime and many americans never own a new car. The cost of a new car has risen to nearly the median annual income and as prices continue to rise, chances are that fewer and fewer americans will be able to afford to buy new.
Regarding leasing, I have never leased and I expect to never lease a car. I guess leasing gives you the ability to make payments forever and be able to have a relatively newer car your whole life, but I would rather just pay less than half the new cost of a car for a two year old car and then own it for another 5 or 6 years.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
There is another site out there that I heard about (I don't use Twitter, Facebook, or any of those social sites, unless you count slashdot, which doesn't seem very social to me) that limits you to 50. I'm sure they also have some scientific reasoning for the limitation.
It seems to me like it would make more sense to just have facebook or twitter give you the option to limit yourself to a number of your choosing. Then there would be no need for a whole other site with that limit that you now have to convince all your friends to sign up for in addition to whatever other sites for which they are already signed up.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
14 hours of my time would cost substantially more than $150. You factored that in when you "came out ahead" right?
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
It would likely take $400+ to fly (per person) and about 6 hours, which would make the break even point about $30/hour for a single person (national average is $20). How does this support your argument?
(Not the original poster)
measuring the number of people an individual can maintain regular contact with, and came up with 150
My number is more like 2-3. Maybe that's why I'm so anti-social.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
See? This is why the first generation of pokemon was the best!
This is your brain on Twitter.
Any questions?
Including sense of humor.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have only a metaphorical method. I would pay $75 to avoid sitting in a truck for fourteen hours. The total pot of money does not change, I agree; but the total pot of disposable time does. Or did you buy pig iron and build the rest of that truck yourself?
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
France is the size of Texas, but has *three times* as many people.
Even still, in regions like the Perignord that I visited two years ago, it is tough to get around without a car.
The limit probably has more to do with the practical aspect of how much time we have to interact with other people. Nothing to do with any brain limit. The Dunbar limit is based on a rather arbitrary definition of what a close friend is.
Read TFA, and it's like watching Fox News.
Correlation doesn't prove anything.
How does the size of military units (specific ones no less, it's not like all military units are the same size) have to do with maintaining stable social circles?
How does real-world social interaction (actual social capital) compare with people you don't know and never met following you on twitter?
You can always find numbers in the world which correlate. The number of galaxies in the universe is about the same as neurons in our brain. Correlation high, significance low.
I think he was talking about the situation in the US. In my area, if you can even catch a bus, it can easily quintuple the trip time.
Cheap storage VM.
I agree, last year I had to decide between driving a bit over 1k miles, a 15 or 16 hour trip or longer w/ small children. :(
For a family of 6 it was about $1k cheaper to driver vs flying. My calculations included car rental and extra time staying in Motels for driving.
In hindsight I might have broke even considering I would have missed less work, the kids would have missed less school, and I would not have had to drive across Kansas. However, I did not have to worry about my super cheap tickets getting me bumped and missing the wedding I was attending. I did not need to worry about a Freedom Fondle, and I'm sure the airlines would have gouged an extra couple hundred.
Cheap storage VM.
I think it's just us, increasingly. Is a Twitter message directed at someone really less personal than an SMS? I see no reason why it should.
Parent said texting-calling. The point is that a phone call or text is one to one, but Twitter or Facebook are one to many.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I can't really add four or five hours a day to my commute just for the joy of riding on a bus or light rail filled with smelly homeless people and meth heads shooting up in the back.
Are you Prince Charles or something? Your grip on reality seems pretty tenuous.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Well, the solution is not to live in the middle of nowhere then, isn't it? Or, if you do, stop whining about it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
your approach is wrong. for any travel that is bigger than an american state, you already use aircraft. it is not logical or economic to haul over a car that long a distance.
It isn't? Tell that to the ~$150 in gas it took me to haul my truck 14 hours across Missouri and Iowa not long ago. Coupled with, ya know, actually having a vehicle to drive when I get there... yeah, I think I came out ahead, all said and done. Plane tickets ain't cheap.
Big fucking deal, a 700 mile+ trip long trip cost you $150. I don't suppose that's exactly your daily commute.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Only if you work 24 hours a day.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it