In Case You Didn't Already Know, Research Shows That Your Facebook Friends Don't Give A Fuck About You

DailyDot- According to a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science by anthropologist Robin Dunbar, only about a quarter of the Facebook friends of those who were studied were considered to be "genuine" friends. In a time of crisis, only 4.1 friends could be counted on for emotional support while 13.6 friends would form a sympathy group for you.

As Engadget points out, Dunbar is the researcher who came up with the "Dunbar number," which theorizes that people can maintain about 150 relationships in real life. In his most recent study, Dunbar gathered 3,375 adults in two samples in the UK. More than 55 percent of the respondents were female, and the average age of those being studied were in their late 30s. The mean number of Facebook friends in the two samples was 155.2 and 182.8.

Dunbar writes that one of the main findings of the study is that the samples "provide a direct test of whether [Internet-based social networking sites] allow individuals to have larger social networks than is possible offline because [they] allow one or more of the constraints that limit offline social network size to be circumvented." He continued, 

"The results clearly suggest that they do not. This result concurs with previous findings for a much smaller sample ... which suggested that heavy users of online social media do not have larger offline social networks than casual users, even though more of these may appear online for heavy users."




I've got to say, this is quite the relief. There is nothing worse than unreciprocated apathy, and I couldn't give less of a shit about a large majority of the people I am "friends" with on Facebook. As a matter of fact, the only reason I haven't done a little house cleaning of the newsfeed is because I don't even care enough about most people to click their name and erase them from my life forever. Everyone knows the saying, it's good to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Facebook is an incredible way to remind yourself why you no longer talk to certain people offline. You don't have to worry about what ever happened to your old buddy Billy when Billy is constantly posting racist memes on social media. You don't have to worry about whether or not your ex-girlfriend from high school was the one when all it takes is a quick scroll to see that she's gained 55 pounds and a fiancée. People don't have Facebook so that they can keep up with everyone that they actually interact with in reality. People have Facebook so they can laugh at the lives of everyone they USED TO interact with. Looking back on previous hookups, past friendships, and short lived acquaintanceships serves as a solid way to remember how far you've come from being the overly social, overly accepting idiot you were when you were younger. I know it's like suuuuuper shocking that the amount of time a person spends collecting arbitrary connections on a website doesn't directly correlate to how many real friends they have, but caring about more than a handful of your Facebook friends is for lonely people and absolute suckers.

Also, I may just be an asshole, but being genuine friends with A QUARTER of your Facebook friends seems like an absurdly high ratio. I probably wouldn't even attend 25% of their funerals.