How many of YOUR Facebook friends could YOU rely on?

IF YOU think the number of friends you have on Facebook is an accurate representation of your real-life friendships – you are sorely mistaken, new research has revealed.

 

People with significantly more than 155 Facebook friends have a fewer dependable friends

 

Anthropologists from the University of Oxford have found that people only have the capacity to maintain friendships with around 150 people.

This figure was based on a study led evolutionary psychologist Professor Robin Dunbar which analysed the social relationships of more than 3,300 people.

Facebook users consider some 28 per cent of their online friends to be "true friends", the University of Oxford study found.

“This is because friendships ultimately require occasional face-to-face interaction if they are to be maintained over time,” the study argued.

 

Facebook users consider some 28 per cent of their online friends to be "true friends"

 

And people would turn to only four per cent of their Facebook friends in the event of an emergency.

Test subjects with significantly more than 155 Facebook friends typically had a smaller circle of dependable friends.

These findings were published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

 

Professor Dunbar said: "Social media certainly help to slow down the natural rate of decay in relationship quality that would set in once we cannot readily meet friends face-to-face.

"But no amount of social media will prevent a friend eventually becoming ‘just another acquaintance’ if you don’t meet face-to-face from time to time.

"There is something paramount about face-to-face interactions that is crucial for maintaining friendships.

"Seeing the white of their eyes from time to time seems to be crucial to the way we maintain friendships."

 

Facebook currently boasts some 1.4 billion average monthly active users. 

The Happiness Research Institute last year asked a group of test subjects to give up Facebook for a week – and discovered that levels of contentment soared during the time offline.

"Facebook distorts our perception of reality and of what other people’s lives really look like," Happiness Research Institute CEO Meik Wiking said.

"We take in to account how we’re doing in life through comparisons to everyone else, and since most people only post positive things on Facebook, that gives us a very biased perception of reality."