Quality Counts, not quantity!!!

There are those who brag about the hundreds of “friends” they’ve made on social networking sites. In an alarming trend, cyber social net workers are even determine their popularity and friendship quotient on the basis of the number of e-friends they notch up for themselves on these sites.It threatens to become a yard stick of social standing, even of self worth. Looking to widen one’s circle of friends in virtual terms only tends to undermine the very meaning of the term ‘friendship’ as it has been under stood for age. It is not for nothing that distinctions are made between strangers, acquaintances, colleagues, friends and family. For none of these categories are interchangeable though one may transform over time from one to another.

Most surfers who pat in a request on social networking site for acceptance as friend to some one they’ve never known before are perhaps doing so out of sheer boredom or because they have oodles of time to spare and for no good reason. In this context the study conducted by researchers at Oxford U’sity, that it is near impossible for the average person to have a social circle of more than 150 people comes as a breath of fresh air. It is built in another study carried out in the 1990s by the same researchers. The theory came up with then- Dunbar’s Number- claimed that we are limited to social circles of a maximum of 150 people because of the site limitation of the neocortex part of our brains. Establishing a direct connection of this sort to come up with a concrete number strains credulity in the extreme. Hopefully, the research and it’s findings will bring in a much needed sobriety on the part of those who make claims on behalf of social networking sites and their users.

This is not to say that online social networking sites are all a waste of time- far from it. They help bring like-minded people together to really in unison on issues of utmost importance; they are potent tools for marketing ideas as well as raising users’ conciouseness on topical social issues; even influencing public policy as has happened several times. However, as the study points out, you cannot have thousands of friends online for the simple reson that friendship demands a great deal of time, energy and understanding from both parties. So to claim that you are creating, nurturing and sustaining such relationships on a bigger scale than before due to new technology  is just a tall one, no less.