Hit the Limit

The other day I was looking at someone’s Facebook page and laughed. Just below a quote about not becoming friends with a lot of people just to collect names was a whopping list of 281 Facebook friends.

OK, this person is a middle school student, and I’m certain a good chunk of the FB friends are simply classmates.

But Facebook is changing the way we think about friends, isn’t it? Can you really apply the term “friend” to people you haven’t seen since middle school, or people you’d have a heck of a time identifying in a police line-up?

Maybe this mass-production of “friends” will soften our society, make us nicer to people. Because, hey, that guy you cut off might be one of your FB friends. Right?

At lunch the other day, a fabulously insightful woman I know (and you may too) mentioned the “Dunbar number” which is an academically-established upper limit of real relationships a person can maintain. Before FB, my Dunbar number was pretty low. I mean, tethered to a desk all day and having a family to provide for is a severe limit on my social activities. I’m thinking the number was around 6. Real friends, I mean, people I have no qualms about calling up when I’m driving home from work, who don’t mind listening to me blather.

Facebook may be stretching my number of “friends” into the mid-double-digits, but  how far is too far? Truthfully, my interest in some of my FB friends has already been quenched. We’ve said hi, caught up.. now what? Along with hitting that ceiling, I’m losing interest in Facebook altogether. Are there still people out there I’m truly compelled to search for? Nah. What else do you do now? Update your status and refresh, waiting for someone else to do the same?

Like the economic cycle we’re in, I’m feeling a downturn coming. Surfing the web isn’t much fun for me anymore, and I’ve hit my limit there too. When I have time to kill on the computer (avoiding cleaning the kitchen, perhaps) I go to the NYTimes, Salon, HuffPost, maybe a shopping site... then I’m tapped out. It’s like all of those cable channels: they’re more of the same.

Do you suppose this means it’s just a tool now, instead of a toy?