Primates on Facebook

The Dunbar Circle

Browsing through digg.com, I found another article that discusses the parallels between Dr. Dunbar's, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, "the Dunbar number [148-150]" and social networking of humans and primates. According to the article, social networking sites, such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc., that humans choose to engage in to keep in touch with their entourage is being recognized by Primatologists as "grooming." Grooming in the wild is time-consuming, but with modern technology and social networking sites, like Facebook, Dr. Dunbar's suggested size of the human brain that was said to only allow stable social networks of about 148-150 has easily doubled because it has been easier, effient, and more convenient to keep track of your friends.

Reading this article, I felt that I agree with Dr. Dunbar's theory that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Even with modern technology, Facebook and Myspace users with +200-500 friends don't really keep in touch with all of them. Out of those 200-500 friends, there are probably only 120 people who are significantly close to them "intimacy circle." Furthermore, out of those 120 people in the "intimacy circle" probably only 10-20 of them, are the lucky few who actually get routinely checked up on and which primital "grooming" takes place. Personally, there's only about 10-15 people on my facebook that I routinely leave posts on for their wall, pictures, blogs, videos, etc. I only tend to talk to the other +200 people when their "birthday" shows up on my sidebar and when they are attending an event that I might attend or am hosting.

With this being said, I was able to reflect on past lectures and articles that we have read and briefly discussed in class regarding social networks on Facebook and Myspace. What it means to have +1293810 friends, are they really your friends?, what facebook and myspace "friends" really mean, etc. Similar to Marlow's findings and article, I was able to conclude that the social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, do help with social networking by advertising yourself as well as keeping tabs of the outter tier of the "Dunbar number," but the inner "intimate circle" of friends doesn't seem to change. Personally, I feel the smaller the "intimate circle" is the more stable the relationships are. But that's just my perspective. Please share with me on what you think about this article and your own personal behavior on Facebook or that of your friends. What say you?