Friendship

jaim38

Well-known member
Interesting post from Lumosity:

No matter how many friends you have on Facebook, the number of truly close friends you can maintain throughout your life may be hardwired. Researchers logged the phone calls of teenagers transitioning out of high school and into either the workforce or college for 18 months. Even as the teens made new friends, the structure of their social circles remained the same: if they had four close friends at the beginning of the study, they had four at the end of the study as well -- though not always the same four friends. Each of us appears to have an individual “social signature” that determines how much time and emotional capital we have to expend on our friends. Has the number of close friends you have remained constant over time? Share this post with friends and let us know in the comments.

Read more here: Scientists May Have Decoded Your Social Circle - Emily Badger - The Atlantic Cities

Source: https://plus.google.com/+lumosity/posts/Z8EvkS2AXZE
 

jaim38

Well-known member
I think my social signature has shrunk from 2 to 1 to possibly 0. I do have friends, but I'm not sure if they're classified as "close friends" because I don't interact with them (online or offline) everyday. I haven't spoken to my "best friend" in a year. I'm curious to know what the definition of "close friend" is, vs "friend" and "loose friend".
 

Silatuyok

Well-known member
I enjoy the concept, but...is an 18 month study really long enough to make such a broad conclusion? My guess would be not so much.
 

DepravedFurball

Well-known member
I enjoy the concept, but...is an 18 month study really long enough to make such a broad conclusion? My guess would be not so much.

/agree.

And, hell, 18 months is 3 periods of study. I can't even remember my first 15 months of college, as it passed in a drunken stupor...

Maybe they'll turn it into a decades-long project, though, and chart the progress of those subjects over that time. At which they'll find that, after a certain amount of time has passed, their initial assumptions are proven dead wrong.
 
I can't say that I can relate to that, have more close friends now than a few years ago. Guess, as you say, that the span of the study is too short. However, I heard somewhere that the amount of facebook friends and amount of gray matter in the brain correlates :p
 
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