An interesting article, and that hits close to the core of my current project. A few points:

First, I think the number of relationships we categorize as “close” in a familial or near-familial context (e.g. childhood friends) has to be bounded by some constant. It will vary from person to person, but when you get right down to it you’ve only got 24 hours in your day, and your attention span is a limited commodity. That said, we are not close to hitting that limit, and aforementioned technologies are helping us push our capabilities. We may not necessarily make more new close friends, but we be able to maintain strong friendships with ones you’ve established through new media of interaction ( and I stress that particular use of the word media).

Secondly, I think that any discussion of the value of expanding your network should also bring to attention the inherent value of weak connections. These are people who are not close to you, but on the borders of your social circle. These are the people you meet at networking events, at work, or even at your country club if that’s your thing. They have real benefit because they can set up introductions to new social circles.

@banu, I think that discount factor has always been there, regardless of what new medium you are talking about. I still think handwritten letters have more significance than email, but I nonetheless find emails from my contacts to still be important. And some day, that distinction will cease to exist. After all I don’t receive telegraphs. And some day, a tweet will have as much meaning as an email, inasmuch as it informs your view of someone you know.

None of this is new, but I thought I would just mention it.

Thanks,

Andy

Social media allows a person to know lots of folks not so well, and perhaps much of social media communications does not subtract from this number.

I agree cost of maintaining a connection is going down but my question is does that translate into more connections of value ? I dont think so .My logic is since connetion cost is going to down to every body the person at the reciveing end of connection will invariably discount that factor in determining weather connection is significant or not . which leads to status quo .

so Birthday wish left on facebook is not the same as birthday wish delivered by calling that person .the person who is reciving birthday wish will treat those wishes seprately.
my point is number of birtday wish might increase but the value of conncetion does not .

Seems the Dunbar’s number persist in social network era. You can read this article from Economist : http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13176775&source=hptextfeature.

“The cost the transaction costs of keeping track of someone is not primarily the effort of actually speaking with them. Rather, it is the cost of remembering their name, what they do, what they think, and how they have related to you in the past” says Jake Young, a neuroscientist.