Facebook Friends: Are They Based On Genuine Relationships

First Posted: Jan 29, 2016 03:34 PM EST
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You might have over a thousand friends on Facebook, but how many of these people would you actually hang out with? How many would you call if you needed help?

Researchers at Oxford University examined if the number of your Facebook friends has anything to do with the number of social connections or individuals you hang out with in real life. From a pool of almost 4,000 people between the ages of 18 and 65, researchers found that the average amount of Facebook friends is 150. However, when researchers asked how many people they would hang out with, the number dropped to just about 28 whom they recognized as genuine friends.

"Friendships, in particular, have a natural decay rate in the absence of contact, and social media may well function to slow down the rate of decay," professor of evolutionary psychology Robin Dunbar, said in a news release. "However, that alone may not be sufficient to prevent friendships eventually dying naturally if they are not occasionally reinforced by face-to-face interaction."

The study shows that the rate of "true friendship" comes in at about 2.7 percent, according to Fox News. In fact, one could probably say that people who use social media-Facebook, in particular-have the same number of friends as those who don't.

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