News

Are Facebook Friends Based On Real Relationships?

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Jan 31, 2016 02:07 PM EST

Are all your Facebook 'friends' really your friends? Scientists at Oxford University probed the list of Facebook friends of about 4,000 people between 18 and 65 years. While the average number of friends came to 150, the genuine or real friends jumped to just about 28, with whom the others would hang out.

"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."

Hence, the rate of "true friendship" can be fixed at about 2.7 percent, reports Fox News.

It leads us to the conclusion that those who use Facebook, as well as those who don't have about the same number of friends.

© 2024 Counsel & Heal All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Join the Conversation

Real Time Analytics