• DocumentCode
    1532873
  • Title

    How many "friends" can you really have?

  • Author

    Dunbar, Robin

  • Volume
    48
  • Issue
    6
  • fYear
    2011
  • fDate
    7/3/1905 12:00:00 AM
  • Firstpage
    81
  • Lastpage
    83
  • Abstract
    Who would have supposed seven years ago that the newly launched piece of software called Facebook would so quickly become a routine part of everyday life? It was, after all, just one more digital trick purporting to spring us from the dusty confines of our small-town lives and into the sunny uplands of a global village, where we could make new friends all around the world. Some might call this the fulfillment of the tech folks- brash promises that such software would help us stay close to an ever-expanding universe of pals. There are the triumphal claims of those who say they have 1000 or even 5000 friends on their Facebook pages, who claim comrades in far-off corners of the world they have never visited. But is this really true? How many real friends do people have on Facebook?
  • Keywords
    Facebook; Social factors; Social implications of technology; Social network services;
  • fLanguage
    English
  • Journal_Title
    Spectrum, IEEE
  • Publisher
    ieee
  • ISSN
    0018-9235
  • Type

    jour

  • DOI
    10.1109/MSPEC.2011.5783712
  • Filename
    5783712