For the socially ambitious, in these anxious times, MySpace and other internet sites built on the notion of community, of sharing, would seem just the thing, and to hear people talk, they are. Their lists of new friends seem to grow longer by the day.
But this raises real questions. Are they really friends? Are we now, thanks to the internet, able to expand our range of friendships by all that much? Indeed, can we now enjoy a limitless quantity of friends?
No, no and no.
These folks may be acquaintances, but they are not really friends in the classic sense and probably are not going to be.
For all the hubbub over social networking, the fact remains that one's circle of friends, real friends, is quite small, 10 or fewer. That's been so for some time, and it's not changed with the rise of MySpace and similar sites.
“My data shows that in the online world, while people have more weak ties, a weak emotional bond, the number of close friends is still about five to 10,” says Will Reader, an evolutionary psychologist and lecturer at Britain’s Sheffield Hallam University who's done research on the subject.
In his research, Reader found that folks continue to make friends the old-fashioned way, face to face. Though they may have met online, real friendship only begins once they've met in person.
Reader's findings are similar to those reached years ago by Robin Dunbar, a professor at the University of Liverpool, who found that the number of friends people have is remarkably consistent across all types of societies.
As Dunbar broke it out, there are typically about 150 people in a person’s entire social network. Of those, about 100 are acquaintances and 50 are friends. Within those 50 friends, 15 to 20 are relatively close and five belong to the innermost circle. These closest friends are the people with whom we share our secrets, call on in times of need and would be devastated if they died.
When Reader questioned 200 social-network users about their friends, he found that his results were in line with Dunbar’s findings in the face-to-face world, although the number of acquaintances was larger online.
Most interesting to Reader was that most people revealed that they had met their closest friends face to face. “What is it about face to face contact? Maybe it is the difficulty of faking things face to face,” he says.
The evolutionary reason for friends, he believes, is to support each other in times of crisis. Because making good friends involves a lot of time, people are cautious in their choices.
“When you are forming a close friend you need to be very sure that they will be prepared to invest in you, like you are in them,” he says.
Body language can be revealing about someone’s true feelings, says Reader, who suggests that this could be why meeting in person seems to be key to forming a deep friendship.
For instance, there are two kinds of smile. In one, just the mouth curls up. In the other, the eyes crinkle, too. With the first type, sometimes called a Pan Am smile, the mouth smiles but the eyes say the person is just doing their job. “It is easier to see in the real world if someone is happy to see you,” says Reader.
As for why the number of acquaintances has increased with social networks, Reader says it could be because the technology makes it so much easier to keep in touch with people.
He also offered his thoughts on why a small group of people on these social networks strive to have massive friend lists. “Speculatively it is someone just doing it as a way of competing with other people. So they can say I have 500 friends,” says Reader.
Plus popularity is sometimes seen as one indicator of the value of a person. So those amassing huge lists could be thinking that if they have 1,000 people on their list, people might infer there is something good about them. “It is some sort of way to fake status,” says Reader.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, Warner Bros.’ “The Brave One” topped the box office over the weekend, bringing in $14.0 million and knocking “3:10 to Yuma” down to No. 2.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Sept. 9, according to IMDb.com, the comedy “Blades of Glory” was No. 1 for the second straight week, followed once again by “Wild Hogs” and “Perfect Stranger.”
On iTunes this morning, Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” was No. 1 for the second straight week, with Matchbox Twenty’s “How Far We’ve Come” once again at No. 2.
And in books, Bill Clinton’s “Giving” debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times’ hardcover nonfiction best-seller list for the week ended Sept. 8 and also was No. 1 on USA Today’s chart for the week ended Sept. 9.
|
TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of September 14-16, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
The Brave One (Warner Bros.)
|
2,755
|
$14.02
|
|
2
|
3:10 to
Yuma (Lionsgate)
|
2,667
|
$9.15
|
|
3
|
Mr. Woodcock (New Line)
|
2,231
|
$9.10
|
|
4
|
Dragon Wars (Freestyle)
|
2,275
|
$5.38
|
|
5
|
Superbad (Sony)
|
2,910
|
$5.20
|
|
6
|
Halloween (MGM)
|
3,051
|
$5.01
|
|
7
|
The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal)
|
2,611
|
$4.15
|
|
8
|
Balls of Fury (Rogue Pictures)
|
2,758
|
$3.34
|
|
9
|
Rush Hour 3 (New Line)
|
2,208
|
$3.33
|
|
10
|
Mr. Bean’s
Holiday (Universal)
|
1,770
|
$2.66
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
|
|
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending September 9, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Blades of Glory
|
1
|
|
2
|
Wild Hogs
|
2
|
|
3
|
Perfect Stranger
|
3
|
|
4
|
Vacancy
|
4
|
|
5
|
Fracture
|
5
|
|
6
|
Georgia Rule
|
-
|
|
7
|
Delta Farce
|
-
|
|
8
|
Disturbia
|
6
|
|
9
|
The Death and Life of Bobby Z
|
-
|
|
10
|
300
|
7
|
|
Source: IMDB
|
|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for week ended Monday, September 10, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
Crank That, Soulja Boy
|
|
2
|
How Far We’ve Come, Matchbox Twenty
|
|
3
|
Bubbly, Colbie Caillat
|
|
4
|
Rockstar, Nickelback
|
|
5
|
Wake Up Call, Maroon 5
|
|
6
|
No One, Alicia Keys
|
|
7
|
Shut Up and Drive, Rihanna
|
|
8
|
Me Love, Sean Kingston
|
|
Source: iTunes
|
|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending September 8, 2007
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
|
1
|
16
|
|
2
|
The Wheel of Darkness
by Douglas Preston and
Lincoln Child
|
2
|
2
|
|
3
|
Bones to Ashes
by Kathy Reichs
|
4
|
2
|
|
4
|
Dark Possession
by Christine Feehan
|
3
|
2
|
|
5
|
The Elves of Cintra
by Terry Brooks
|
5
|
2
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
Giving by Bill Clinton
|
-
|
1
|
|
2
|
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light by Mother Teresa
|
-
|
1
|
|
3
|
Lone Survivor
by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson
|
4
|
13
|
|
4
|
Dead Certain by Robert Draper
|
-
|
1
|
|
5
|
Quiet Strength
by Tony Dungy with Nathan Whitaker
|
2
|
9
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
The Collectors
by David Baldacci
|
-
|
1
|
|
2
|
74 Seaside Avenue
by Debbie Macomber
|
-
|
1
|
|
3
|
Killer Dreams
by Iris Johansen
|
-
|
1
|
|
4
|
Innocent in Death
by J. D. Robb
|
-
|
1
|
|
5
|
Act of Treason by Vince Flynn
|
-
|
1
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
1
|
33
|
|
2
|
90 Minutes in Heaven
by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
|
2
|
46
|
|
3
|
The
Glass
Castle by Jeannette Walls
|
3
|
87
|
|
4
|
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
by Michael Pollan
|
-
|
2
|
|
5
|
Three Cups of Tea
by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
-
|
32
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending September 9, 2007
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Giving by Bill Clinton
|
-
|
|
2
|
74 Seaside Avenue
by Debbie Macomber
|
1
|
|
3
|
The Collectors
by David Baldacci
|
4
|
|
4
|
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
|
2
|
|
5
|
Killer Dreams
by Iris Johansen
|
3
|
|
6
|
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
|
7
|
|
7
|
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
|
6
|
|
8
|
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
|
11
|
|
9
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
12
|
|
10
|
At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks
|
14
|
|
Source:
USA Today
|
