London - They may have hundreds of online ‘friends’, but Facebook users have only four that they can really rely on.
And Oxford University researchers say the idea that people have thousands of internet friends is an urban myth. In fact, the average Facebook user has between 150 and 180.
But many of these are far from close – and on average we have only four real friends we can count on in times of crisis.
Researcher Robin Dunbar, a leading evolutionary biologist, studied two surveys involving almost 3,500 Britons. One group had an average of 155 people listed as friends on Facebook. The other said they had 183. Women and younger people were particularly sociable.
However, when asked how many of these they would ask for support when times were tough, the number dwindled to just four. And only 14 friends could be relied on for sympathy.
Despite the perception that many people have hundreds of Facebook friends, less than 15 per cent had more than 300, the Royal Society journal Open Science reports.
Professor Dunbar said: ‘Respondents who had unusually large networks did not increase the number of close friendships they had but rather added more loosely declined acquaintances into their friendship circle simply because most social media sites do not allow one to differentiate between the layers.’
Daily Mail