dunbar’s number

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: dunbar’s number 🔢 

after 10 minutes of scrolling on tiktok and way too many “here’s how i made $10k today” or “here’s what i eat in a day on a bulk” videos, i turned my phone off in annoyance.

i wasn’t irritated at the creators by any means, but more so at the effect those 10 minutes had on me — feelings of not doing enough and guilt for taking a break crept up on me. no point wallowing in that though, so i turned off my phone and took a more effective break instead: texting my friends. 😇 

i was left with a thought after that though. we were never meant to know about the lives of so many other people in such detail. of course we’re plagued by comparison nagging in our minds when there’s millions of datapoints to make reference to.

this line of thought led me to an internet rabbit hole where i eventually landed on an interesting concept called dunbar’s number.

i don’t necessarily subscribe to the idea, but it’s cool to think about. i certainly think humans have limits to maintainable relationships; however, social media muddles what those different layers of closeness look like.

essentially, dunbar’s number describes a theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships a person can maintain. interestingly, robin dunbar, the anthropologist who proposed the idea, concluded that the size of the neocortex, proportionate to the body, is connected to the size of a cohesive social group. when applying this principle to humans, 150 was cited as the most frequent number.

these 150 relationships are then broken up into different layers: 5 (loved ones), 15 (good friends), 50 (friends), 150 (meaningful contacts), 500 (acquaintances) and 1500 (faces you can recognize).

i wonder how digital vs. in-person connections fit into these layers differently. 🤔 

would 150 also be your number?

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