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An Oxford University researcher has put forward evidence that demonstrates how having more than 150 friends on a social networking site is meaningless.

Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology Robin Dunbar has combined studies of various social groups from ancient times onwards with knowledge of the human brain's capacities. Following this research he argued that the maximum number of proper inter-personal relationships a person is capable of sustaining is 150 at best.

Dunbar only recently turned his attentions toward the study of social networking sites. The results obtained by studying the interactions between users of networking sites like Facebook confirmed that people with thousands of buddies sent and received the same amount of traffic as people with smaller friend counts.

In Dunbar's own words: “The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world.”

It is safe to conclude therefore that people with 1,500 Facebook buddies haven’t got 1,500 real friends, they just want to look popular.

Source: Techwatch