Dunbar Numbers and Awkward Moments at Foodtown.

So, the Dunbar Number (generally accepted as about 150) is the number of people a person can know personally at any given time. You contact them at least once or twice a year. You can remember roughly 150 names, faces, and relationships- who knows who, where you know them from, who you know them through, and so forth. Any more than that and your brain started getting too strained to keep up in any cohesive way.

Does this mean that if you have, say, 320 friends on your social network of choice there's roughly 170 people in that group that, if you were to bump into them at the supermarket, you wouldn't quite remember who they were?

You might sort of know you knew them, might recognize them, but awkwardly forget their name. Or maybe you'd remember their name, but get confused and think you know them from lectures when actually they're your cousin's girlfriend.

How does the number change when you apply it to interfaces such as Facebook?

Dunbar himself has recently examined Facebook in terms of his infamous number, to see whether it applies to virtual communities. The study hasn't officially been released yet, but this website claims he found that the number 150 stands even when it comes to online "friends".

Then again, Facebook informs you of a person's name (sometimes including their middle name, if they thought it vital to let everyone know that too), their university, the high school they went to and in what years, their friends, what they Like (Bob Marley quotes, usually) and who they're currently In A Relationship with. There's a photo of the person's face next to their name in your news-feed.

It makes it a lot easier to "remember" or "know" someone when you can stimulate your memory with a quick glance at where you night have met them (best friends for a week in primary school?) and who they're dating. Surely Dunbar's Number goes up a little, what with FB helping you manage your contacts instead of letting your brain do all the work.