How many close friends do most people have? The answer is … (2024)
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Going through a global pandemic has brought us together in some ways, but it’s also separated many of us from our routine interactions with friends and acquaintances. And in doing so, it’s led us to look at our relationships and reflect on the ones we’d like to add to our lives — and the ones we’ve left behind.
Voraciously curious data journalist Mona Chalabi has been thinking about her friendships too, and she recently explored this topic in her podcast Am I Normal?. Here’s an excerpt from that episode, where Chalabi speaks with renowned friendship researcher Robin Dunbar PhD, an evolutionary psychologist at Oxford University:
Mona Chalabi: According to Dunbar, our apple basket of relationships has an average of 150 people in it. This 150 figure is referred to as “Dunbar’s number“. Now it might seem high, but what Dunbar is looking at is the number of relationships the brain can handle at one time. This includes family, best friends, acquaintances, workmates, even the bartender you know by name. So they’re friends of a wide range of types.
Dunbar has studied social relationships since the ’70s, first in primates and then in humans. He developed the number while studying primates’ social networks. And that was when he noticed that the size of those social groups was relative to the size of the primates’ brains.
“Introverts prefer to have fewer friends,” says Dr. Dunbar. “They probably sort of hover around the 100 – 150 mark.”
Chalabi: The figure popped up in surprising places — offices, communes, even Christmas card lists. 150 is also the estimated size of Neolithic farming villages in the Middle East and 11th-century Britain … Dunbar says 150 for simplicity, but really, it’s a range between 100 and 250, depending on several factors.
Dunbar: One is obviously personality. So introverts prefer to have fewer friends. They probably sort of hover around the 100 – 150 mark …
Dunbar: The size of personal social networks over the lifespan increases as you grow through childhood, hits a peak somewhere in the late teens, early 20s at something approaching about 250. And then from about the 30s, surprisingly coinciding with reproduction, it drops to about 150 after which it remains very stable.
Chalabi:… You see, within that 100 – 250 friend range, there are layers or concentric circles. The first layer is about 1.5 people. That often represents your parents or your romantic partner.
Dunbar:Then the next layer out is somewhere around about 5 — we think of those as your intimate friends. The next layer out is 15 — those you might think of as best friends. Then there’s a layer at 50 — good friends. A layer at 150 — just friends. A layer at 500 — which we think of as acquaintances.
Chalabi:50 good friends! Five-zero! That feels like a whole lot of people! And I think this is the tier where I’m having the most trouble.
… The more I think about it, part of the problem here might be that some of the people who were once part of that super-close friend group, maybe I just didn’t do enough to keep them there.
Dunbar:Certainly our research shows very clearly that if you fail to maintain that level of investment, friendships start to die slowly, but surely. Six months after you’ve not contacted them, they will have dropped down from being a good friend to maybe just a friend. And if it carries on for a couple of years, they will end up as an acquaintance.
Want to learn more? In her TED podcast Am I Normal?, data journalist, writer and illustrator Mona Chalabi dives into the numbers to get us answers to some of the most puzzling questions — like just how long does it take to get over a breakup and how bad is it to marry a cousin. But since statistics can’t tell the whole story, she also talks with experts, strangers and even her mother. Go here to listen to the irresistible episodes now.
You can also watch this TED original video with Mona Chalabi here:
About half of adults 65 and older (49%) say they have five or more close friends, compared with 40% of those 50 to 64, 34% of those 30 to 49 and 32% of those younger than 30. In turn, adults under 50 are more likely than their older counterparts to say they have between one and four close friends.
A majority of adults, 53 percent, said that they have between one and four close friends, and 38 percent said they have at least five. At the other end of the spectrum, only 8 percent claimed to have no close friends at all. The picture differs slightly according to age.
According to CNBC, people tend to need around 10 close friendships to lead a happy life. However, the same source suggests that having too many friends could actually be associated with lower well-being, indicating that a moderate number of close friendships is ideal for happiness.
What has come to be known as Dunbar's number contends that humans are only cognitively able to maintain about 150 connections at once (subsequent research has put the number higher). That includes an inner circle of about five close friends, followed by larger concentric circles of more casual types of friends.
In the United States, for example, the share of people saying they have no close friends at all went up from 3 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2021, according to surveys by Gallup and the Survey Center on American Life.
There's no “right” number of friends you should have, but research says most people have between 3 and 5 close friends. Friendship is necessary, but it can feel challenging to find people who really “get” you. What's more, what you need from your friends might change as your life circ*mstances change.
Having three to six close friends is not a hard-and-fast rule, so don't worry if your number is outside of that range. According to a 2021 American Perspectives Survey, about half of survey respondents said they have three or fewer close friends and 13 percent said they have 10 or more.
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) advocates the same. It states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. So, 80% of your deep friendship relations will come from 20% of your friends. 80% of your productivity will come from 20% of your tasks.
About half of adults 65 and older (49%) say they have five or more close friends, compared with 40% of those 50 to 64, 34% of those 30 to 49 and 32% of those younger than 30. In turn, adults under 50 are more likely than their older counterparts to say they have between one and four close friends.
How Long Do Friendships Last Statistically? One poll found that the average friendship lasts for 17 years, however, 17% of survey responders said they've had the same best friend for over 30 years!
Summary: An individual human can maintain stable social relationships with about 150 people, not more. This is the proposition known as 'Dunbar's number' - that the architecture of the human brain sets an upper limit on our social lives.
By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. There is some evidence that brain structure predicts the number of friends one has, though causality remains to be seen.
The Rule of 150, or Dunbar's Number is a suggestion that there is an upper limit to the number of connections humans can make before communication and relationships break down. As a company scales and grows it becomes increasingly tricky to maintain good communication and connections between people and teams.
Even if you have few or no friends, it doesn't mean that your life is less fulfilling or less valuable. Instead of envying what other people have, celebrate what makes your life special. Focus on your feelings of gratitude for the things you have and love.
Is it normal to have no friends? Reports suggest that many adults report having few friends or none at all. Among millennial-aged adults, 27% report that they have no close friends. 1 Societal trends appear to be playing a part, but there are individual factors that may also contribute to the lack of friendships.
43% of Introverts and 38% of Extraverts report having 3–4 people in their primary friend group. 20% of Introverts and 29% of Extraverts report having 5–6 people in their primary friend group. 9% of Introverts and 21% of Extraverts report having 7+ people in their primary friend group.
Motivational speaker Jim Rohn says that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. This relates to the law of averages, which is the theory that the result of any given situation will be the average of all outcomes.
Less than half (43%) of Americans socialize with their friends in person on a daily or weekly basis. While many regularly see friends in person, it's still less likely for friends to see each other daily – only 14% say they're coming together to socialize every day.
By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships. There is some evidence that brain structure predicts the number of friends one has, though causality remains to be seen.
43% of Introverts and 38% of Extraverts report having 3–4 people in their primary friend group. 20% of Introverts and 29% of Extraverts report having 5–6 people in their primary friend group. 9% of Introverts and 21% of Extraverts report having 7+ people in their primary friend group.
Introduction: My name is Horacio Brakus JD, I am a lively, splendid, jolly, vivacious, vast, cheerful, agreeable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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