Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist coined the Dunbar number. The Dunbar Number is the cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships.
Also known as the rule of 150, 150 is that limit or Dunbar Number.
With a multitude of social media networks and connections, think about the people you know. You may have over 500 connections on LinkedIn. You could also have an average 338 friends on Facebook but how many do you really know? Can you relate to all your Facebook friends?
How many people do you know in your company? Unless you work in a small set-up, chances are that you know a handful and are friends with an even smaller number.
Would you agree with the impact of Dunbar Number in our lives?
Writing for MicroblogMondays #212.
happiness and food 
Now that’s a cool fact.
I think my number is going to be even less than that. I have longer relationship with my blog than a lot of people in my life 😅
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150 to my mind is quite a lot ! When we were sending out invites for our daughter’s wedding we found that each of us really wanted only about 50 people we HAD to have . I don’t know how people invite hordes of guests ! This post has made me think – I will count the people I know and see if they amount to 150
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I just went and checked the number of my FB friends after reading this and it is 542. Of that less than 10 I can say with confidence I connect with on a regular basis excluding my husband and sister. This post makes perfect sense, Parul, the number of people we actually know is always less than the number of people we know in any circle.
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Had not known this… as Rajlakshmi said above me, I probably have a longer relationship with my blog too. Out of the 1500 odd on Facebook, doubt if even 20 know where I work
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Interesting, but even 150 seems way too many to me at this stage in my life!
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Very interesting . I never thought about it. My God it’s very less in real sense ! Including work work place I know hardly 100 ppl but friends ? Oh no only a handful !!
What to do ?
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150? It is more like 15 for me 🙂
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Ha ha!
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This is first time I have heard about it. Thanks for posting for all of us.
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My pleasure 🙂
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That just blew my mind! I can count on my fingers how many people I am close to. And I guess that’s a good thing, right? 🙂
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New term for me, never heard about it before. I can actually count the no. of ppl I am socially active or see them in my future too.
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Not heard of this yet but I agree with the concept of it. I too sometimes wonder about the number of friends on SM which btw keeps increasing! But there are only a handful of peeps that I am in touch with and know the ins and outs of their lives – same of mine with them! I take care of who to include in my circle of close peeps and off late this has become very scrooge like for me! I hate to mix up now a days; I am quite content in just knowing the number of peeps that I do know.
On another note – I recently had a blogger ask for my number to keep in touch via WA and I just loved the thought she had there; her overall interaction with me has been so peppy and happy that I was quite happy to get into this groove. So glad she made the move as I just loved chatting with her yesterday.
So on this note, sending you a DM on twitter 🙂
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Dunbar was an optimist. My limit is seems to be 2.
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I know what you mean.
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