http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/10/the-penalty-for-violating-dunbars-law.html
Research shows that a typical human being can only have 150 friends. After 150 you start to lose track. That’s what happened to me. In my Facebook profile I got connected to hundreds of friends. At first it was to connect with people with similar interests. Which I did.
I have met some great people on facebook.
However, when my friends list reached 2,000 plus. I lost track. the updates were moving too fast. I missed on updates from close friends and relatives. A relationship is two way. friends with fewer friends on their profile would easily notice my updates but i rarely noticed their updates, since there are too many. At any one there are a minimum of 120 friends online not counting those who have hidded their status. When I go online chats pop up like there is no tommorow. it’s hard to keep track of conversation. Just like Chinua Achembe – Round and round the center cannot hold. Things fall apart.
That’s how my facebook account has been losing value day in day out.
It’s an experiment worth learning from. Since I was getting so many requests in a day. I optimized my private settings and hid my profile from search results. But Google the keeper of all secrtes still continued to index my profile and I continued to get friend requets daily. It’s a good thing to have many friends but as mentioned earlier after 150 it’s hard to keep track. I think that’s why they invented twitter. In twitter I have 1000 + followers nad I only follow less than 20 people. in this case it makes sense.