Blog post #4- Elizabeth Kvil

For this week's post, I will be discussing Robin Dunbar’s Number and his social brain hypothesis. Dunbar discusses how the neocortex of the human brain size allows humans to only maintain a group size of 150 individuals. This group size is categorized as 5 close friends, 15 good friends, 50 friends, and 150 acquaintances including the previous numbers. This is because humans may only maintain close relationships with 150. However, in our society this has all changed as social media allows us to connect with as many people as we want. Most individuals do not really tend to keep personal and meaningful relationships online, they just keep as many connections as possible for their own benefit. Most people that I know have 150 plus friends on their Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts. This theory was relevant before, but with our developing society that is not the case anymore. If this theory was still prevalent in our time, then social media influencers or celebrities would not have the platforms that they have. We prioritize having more online friends than anything because that is what’s normal now. Platforms such as Instagram become less and less intimate as time goes on which is what influences us to keep inauthentic online relationships. 


Comments

  1. Teagan HaggertyNovember 10, 2022 at 12:51 PM

    Great blog post; I was intrigued by what you said about how social media surpasses Dunbar's numbers. I agree with the statement you made regarding how people online don't tend to use social media as a way to maintain meaningful relationships; it's more a place to just connect with people who you have encountered in the past. I believe that social media is a great place to stay connected with people beyond Dunbar's 150 number, just like you noted between celebrities having countless followers and connections where there is typically no meaning beyond it with the presence of inauthenticity of social media. In relation to inauthenticity heavily correlates to the online world where the distinction between fake and real friends becomes an issue of concern as it is deemed to be normalized by having the greatest number of followers rather than having meaningful relationships between the five close friends is what is highlighted across various social media platforms.

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  2. Sydney FriedNovember 15, 2022 at 7:00 PM

    Hello,
    I really enjoyed reading your blog post for this week's discussion. In my post, I decided to talk about the Dunbar Number and his social brain hypothesis as well as I believed it was important and engaging to our class thus far. Although social media has allowed me to connect with many more people, many are categorized as more distant than acquaintances and don't typically fall among my 150 friends. I liked your point regarding social media influencers. Many become famous simply due to their number of followers, despite having zero interactions with most of them. These platforms become significantly less intimate since we are constantly never aware of who is being authentic or not. On Instagram, many of my friends and influencers that I follow tend to edit their pictures and even tone their bodies, reflecting unauthentic ways. Have you made any friends on social media that you would categorize as your 15 close friends?

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