Facebook Reality

The Economist has an interesting article about Facebook and "friends." Money graph:

Put differently, people who are members of online social networks are not so much “networking” as they are “broadcasting their lives to an outer tier of acquaintances who aren’t necessarily inside the Dunbar circle,” says Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a polling organisation. Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever."

So if you have a half-dozen friends in real life, you're likely to have no more in Facebook. Hmm.