Friction, Reach and Social Network Dynamics

A recent Economist article profiles Dr. Robin Dunbar's research into social circles and extrapolates her findings to current social networking behavior.

Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who now works at Oxford University, concluded that the cognitive power of the brain limits the size of the social network that an individual of any given species can develop. Extrapolating from the brain sizes and social networks of apes, Dr Dunbar suggested that the size of the human brain allows stable networks of about 148. Rounded to 150, this has become famous as “the Dunbar number”.

The rise of online social networks, with their troves of data, might shed some light on these matters. So The Economist asked Cameron Marlow, the “in-house sociologist” at Facebook, to crunch some numbers. Dr Marlow found that the average number of “friends” in a Facebook network is 120, consistent with Dr Dunbar’s hypothesis...

What also struck Dr Marlow, however, was that the number of people on an individual’s friend list with whom he (or she) frequently interacts is remarkably small and stable. The more “active” or intimate the interaction, the smaller and more stable the group.

What mainly goes up, therefore, is not the core network but the number of casual contacts that people track more passively.

The author concludes that as particpants we are not "networking" exactly, but "broadcasting our lives to an outer tier of acquaintances" more efficiently than ever before.

Though the extended reach that online social networks provide may not change the physiological limitations on how we relate to each other, the increased familiarity this reach engenders with those in our outer tiers may change the dynamics of our social groups over time, destabilizing them and reducing the friction inherent in moving from one tier to another.

Full Article: Primates on Facebook

Labels: network dynamics, social networks