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A study of the sites revealed that while many users have hundreds or even thousands of acquaintances on their accounts, their core group of close friends is still unchanged at around five people. However, weak ties among people around the globe are rising exponentially, said Will Reader, an evolutionary psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Thanks for the obvious, but really - how different is this from "real life"
Most people I know have MANY acquaintances - the kind of people they will say hey to at a club, maybe go out for drinks now and then or have a fleeting conversation on MSN with, but they are not "true" friends, and then have a smaller group of only 3-4 people that are truly good friends. The internet just compounds this 10 fold.
People are far too loose with the term Friendship IMO. I have many acquaintances, but only a handful of friends that I truly care about and would help them with anything if they needed/asked - and quite frankly, I'd rather keep it that way.
However, I've decided on facebook, for the sake of my sanity - I only add friends that are people who I actually know / knew outside of the internet + family members.
Sure, my friend list may not be 10 pages long like some other people I know, but I actually /know/ the people on my list (with a few exceptions that were added before I decided to adhere to this..)
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