British anthropologist Robin Dunbar says human beings can have no more than 150 friends – that’s the upper limit the brain can absorb. His conclusion comes from studying the social group size of monkeys and apes and how that size might relate to the brain.
Initially Dunbar was examining why primates groom each other. If the reason involved sexual bonding, it should correspond to “the social brain hypothesis” that the reason primates have a large brain is because of their social complexity.
In other words, you need a large brain to keep track of your relationships. Humans, he says, are no different.
Known as “Dunbar’s number,” the idea of an upper limit to friends is bound to cause some people – especially teens and young adults -- to raise their eyebrows, particularly in this era of social network sites where some people boast of having thousands of friends.
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