Futurehead.com

  • Decrease font size
  • Default font size
  • Increase font size
OMG: brains can’t handle all our Facebook friends
Tuesday, 26 January 2010 14:39

WE may be able to amass 5,000 friends on Facebook but humans’ brains are capable of managing a maximum of only 150 friendships, a study has found.

Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has conducted research revealing that while social networking sites allow us to maintain more relationships, the number of meaningful friendships is the same as it has been throughout history.

Dunbar developed a theory known as “Dunbar’s number” in the 1990s which claimed that the size of our neocortex — the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language — limits us to managing social circles of around 150 friends, no matter how sociable we are.

Read full article

 
0 Votes

0 Comments

Add Comment


     

    The Futurehead poll

    Faster than light neutrinos - where do you stand?
     

    NASA Image Of The Day

    NASA Image Of The Day
    Panorama of the East Coast
    This Jan. 29 panorama of much of the East Coast, photographed by one of the Expedition 30 crew members aboard the International Space Station, provides a look generally northeastward: Philadelphia-New York City-Boston corridor (bottom-center); western Lake Ontario shoreline with Toronto (left edge); Montreal (near center). An optical illusion in the photo makes the atmospheric limb and light activity from Aurora Borealis appear "intertwined." Image Credit: NASA...
    03 Feb 2012
    800x6001024x768Large

    In Futuredise Store

    Molecular T-shirt
    FutureHood Hoodie Top

    Technology Quotes of the Day

    If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1000 MPG.
    Bill Gates

    Brain Quotes of the Day

    Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!
    Alexander Pope

    Evolution Quotes of the Day

    After all, the universe required ten billion years of evolution before life was even possible; the evolution of the stars and the evolving of new chemical elements in the nuclear furnaces of the stars were indispensable prerequisites for the generation of life.
    John Polkinghorne

    Diffusion Science Radio

    Exercise, censorship and mobiles »»
    Polarity, chilli and weirdness »»
    Brain magnets, junk DNA and nyphomania »»
    Grave chemistry, anti-gravity, armpits »»