First read this:
Robin Dunbar: we can only ever have 150 friends at most...
Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar tells Aleks Krotoski why even Facebook cannot expand our true social circle: our brains just aren't big enough to cope
Now allow me to disagree.
"...in the end, we actually have to get together to make a relationship work." And I want to completely disagree with this. I have online friendships that are so rich and fulfilling that I feel like we've lived next door for years.
But more than that, I think what Mr. Dunbar may not be considering is that in modern society our brains only have to "cope" with one community at a time.
After the friending frenzy that took place after LIFE is Good, I have 480 friends on Facebook. But even there, I'm only interacting on any given day with the subset of my friends that is posting that day. And that subset is further categorized into groups both on my page and in my brain: family, unschoolers, coworkers, etc.
Similarly, in real life, I have one community at home (immediate family), one in my neighborhood, one at work, various configurations of extended family, and various configurations at unschooler gatherings.
It is only at the last of these that nametags are provided, and I think we're all appreciative of those. So maybe our brains can't cope with that many names, but they certainly have no problem coping with that many connections. We thrive on the connections. We thrive on having so many familiar faces around us. And after a long weekend together, most of the faces are familiar. There were ~650 people at LIFE is Good; by Monday, they all felt like family.
Our brains have evolved slowly. Our comprehension of and capacity for community have not.
Traveling, sleeping
2 hours ago
6 comments:
I am in total love with my Facebook family and my Life is Good Family (lots of overlap there)!
I heard some similar theory years ago, that a person could only be *close* friends with a maximum of 7 people. I thought that was oddly specific and very slim. Some people have more than 7 people living in their house!
While I have only 117 friends on Facebook, and that *is* most of the people I know, I keep up with them all. I never thought I could, before Facebook, but since I see people's updates that they post on their own time, that means we can connect on a daily basis (theoretically, if they all posted every day) without me having to have time to see 117 people every day. That makes a huge difference! Even people living in a tribe together don't have that. You can have 400 people in a village without all their paths crossing, but if 400 people are posting news that you can peruse whenever you have the time, then you're going to feel connected to them. Facebook is awesome for that.
my experience is different, but i'm somewhat anal. i want to read what my friends post, including music videos, journals, articles, and other links. if it's important enough for them to post it, reading it feels like an aspect of getting to know them and connecting.
and even with "only" 103 friends, it's hard to keep up and still have time for the many other things i want and need to do. i can feel somewhat overwhelmed.
my original intent was to use facebook to keep up with the teens in my life. adding adults was ambivalent for me initially, yet the adults i've added do feel like extended family and community i care about, so i want to keep up with *everyone*. there's not a limit in my heart, but my time is finite.
individually, for me, it's hard to maintain close friendships at a deep level if the numbers get big. it's not like "7" is a magic number, or any specific number is "it", yet my capacity for deep-deep might be limited based on me wanting a pretty deep level of closeness for close friends, and time isn't infinite.
yet extended community IS still feasible and facebook has been wonderful for that. i just need to learn how to feel less anal!
Yes, Lynelle, I know what you mean, and depth of relationship is part of what Dunbar is talking about. I just don't like the limitation, I guess. Imagine that! :-)
*you* don't like a random limitation?! imagine that!
smiles.
I've been stewing about how to respond to this. I've decided to eschew a reasoned, logical, structured response in favor of simply saying that Robin Dunbar is full of shit. Logically speaking, a premise can be negated by ONE counterexample. I'm it. So there.
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