LONDON: Most of your Facebook friends
don't care about you and probably wouldn't
even sympathise with your problems,
according to a new study. Many people have
hundreds of Facebook friends. But people
can only really depend on four of them, on
average, according to new research.
. . Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary
psychology at Oxford University, undertook a
study to find out the connection between
whether people have lots of Facebook friends
and real friends. He found that there was
very little correlation between having friends
on social networks and actually being able to
depend on them, or even talking to them
regularly.
. . The average person studied had around 150
Facebook friends. But only about 14 of them
would express sympathy in the event of
anything going wrong. The average person
said that only about 27 per cent of their
Facebook friends were genuine.
. . Those numbers are mostly similar to how
friendships work in real life, the research
said. But the huge number of supposed
friends on a friend list means that people can
be tricked into thinking that they might have
more close friends.
. . "There is a cognitive constraint on the size of
social networks that even the communication
advantages of online media are unable to
overcome," Professor Dunbar wrote wrote.
"In practical terms, it may reflect the fact
that real (as opposed to casual) relationships
require at least occasional face-to-face
interaction to maintain them."
. . Facebook friends tend to organise in different
layers, the research claims. About five people
will be in the first and closest one, then 15,
50 and 150 different friends will be in each
of the groups as they move further out.
.
Source: http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/soci...-entirely-fake-Study/articleshow/50694469.cms
don't care about you and probably wouldn't
even sympathise with your problems,
according to a new study. Many people have
hundreds of Facebook friends. But people
can only really depend on four of them, on
average, according to new research.
. . Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary
psychology at Oxford University, undertook a
study to find out the connection between
whether people have lots of Facebook friends
and real friends. He found that there was
very little correlation between having friends
on social networks and actually being able to
depend on them, or even talking to them
regularly.
. . The average person studied had around 150
Facebook friends. But only about 14 of them
would express sympathy in the event of
anything going wrong. The average person
said that only about 27 per cent of their
Facebook friends were genuine.
. . Those numbers are mostly similar to how
friendships work in real life, the research
said. But the huge number of supposed
friends on a friend list means that people can
be tricked into thinking that they might have
more close friends.
. . "There is a cognitive constraint on the size of
social networks that even the communication
advantages of online media are unable to
overcome," Professor Dunbar wrote wrote.
"In practical terms, it may reflect the fact
that real (as opposed to casual) relationships
require at least occasional face-to-face
interaction to maintain them."
. . Facebook friends tend to organise in different
layers, the research claims. About five people
will be in the first and closest one, then 15,
50 and 150 different friends will be in each
of the groups as they move further out.
.
Source: http://m.timesofindia.com/tech/soci...-entirely-fake-Study/articleshow/50694469.cms
