By Jane Luscombe
According to university researchers, the appropriate number of friends one should have is somewhere around 200 because human brains cannot cope with more.
They say competition for friends on social network sites like Facebook and Twitter is futile because our brains are incapable of coping with more than 200.
Oxford professor Robin Dunbar says the neocortex of our brains can only keep track of around a 150 friends – a figure now known as Dunbar’s number.
“It's become a kind of competition to see how many friends you can have on your Facebook,” says Mr Dunbar.
And it is not uncommon for users to have 500-1000 online friends.
“I suggest that if you do actually claim that, any of you, you probably don't know most of these people. They're just voyeurs into your life.”
But Otago social media lecturer Andrew Long argues mobile devices and online social sites have made it easier to amass more friends than that.
“You actually don't need to manage that many people in your brain any more,” says Mr Long.
And he says Twitter was a bad example to study because it is used for different things to friendship; like following celebrities or finding out information.
Pick any number, but one thing will always limit how many friends you can juggle – time.
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