Social cognition on the Internet: testing constraints on social network size
Open accessAbstract
The social brain hypothesis (an explanation for the evolution of brain size in primates) predicts that humans typically cannot maintain more than 150 relationships at any one time. The constraint is partly cognitive (ultimately determined by some aspect of brain volume) and partly one of time. Friendships (but not necessarily kin relationships) are maintained by investing time in them, and failure to do so results in an inexorable deterioration in the quality of a relationship. The Internet, and in particular the rise of social networking sites (SNSs), raises the possibility that digital media might allow us to circumvent some or all of these constraints. This allows us to test the importance of these constraints in limiting human sociality. Although the recency of SNSs means that there have been relatively few studies, those that are available suggest that, in general, the ability to broadcast to many individuals at once, and the possibilities this provides in terms of continuously updating our understanding of network members’ behaviour and thoughts, do not allow larger networks to be maintained. This may be because only relatively weak quality relationships can be maintained without face-to-face interaction.
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Developmental trajectories are often irregular and unpredictable, and they heavily depend on the effect of environmental and sociocultural factors with which the subject interacts and relates to.
“Developmental trajectories are often irregular and unpredictable, and they heavily depend on the effect of environmental and sociocultural factors with which the subject interacts and relates to [8].”
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Although in the 1990s an overall pessimistic conception supported by numerous studies prevailed, the current picture appears to be more optimistic.
“Although in the 1990s an overall “pessimistic” conception supported by numerous studies [44] prevailed, the current picture appears to be more optimistic [21,2,8,42,9]”
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According to Dunbar, the circle of friends on social media is not qualitatively homogeneous as it tends to include a vast array of simple acquaintances that people do not foster in a stable way.
“the circle of friends on the social media is not qualitatively homogeneous as it tends to include a vast array of simple acquaintances that people do not foster in a stable (and therefore cognitively demanding) way”
From Internet use and access, behavior, cyberbullying, and grooming: Results of an investigative whole city survey of adolescents (2017) · cites this paper as [41]
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- Authors
- Dunbar, R. I. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Dunbar, R. I. M.
- ORCID
- Dunbar, R. I. M.
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2012-08-05
- Volume
- 367
- Issue
- 1599
- Pages
- 2192-2201
- ISSN
- 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
- 1471-2970
- PMC
- PMC3385686
- OpenAlex
- W2042206122
- Cited by
- 148
- References
- 89
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 10 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 1.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Keywords
- social cognition, social network size, Dunbar's number, social brain hypothesis, social networking sites, online relationships, friendship maintenance, relationship quality, face-to-face interaction, human sociality, digital media
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Cognition, Emotions, Biological Evolution, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Organ Size, Social Behavior, Social Environment, Time Factors, Internet, Friends, Social Networking
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