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Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior
February 27th, 2009
| By Justin Smith | 93 Comments » |
The famous Dunbar number, or “theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships”, is generally accepted to be about 150. However, in a recent interview with The Economist, Cameron Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook, shared some interesting stats on Facebook users’ social behavior patterns.
His findings: while many people have hundreds friends on Facebook, they still only actively communicate with a small few. Or to quote the author of the article, “Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”
Here’s the data from Marlow:
The average male Facebook user with 120 friends:
- Leaves comments on 7 friends’ photos, status updates, or wall
- Messages or chats with 4 friends
The average female Facebook user with 120 friends:
- Leaves comments on 10 friends’ photos, status updates, or wall
- Messages or chats with 6 friends
The average male Facebook user with 500 friends:
- Leaves comments on 17 friends’ photos, status updates, or wall
- Messages or chats with 10 friends
The average female Facebook user with 500 friends:
- Leaves comments on 26 friends’ photos, status updates, or wall
- Messages or chats with 16 friends
In other words, Facebook users comment on stuff from only about 5-10% of their Facebook friends. And as has been shown by many other studies, women communicate with more people in all cases than men.
“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,’” Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, says.
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February 27th, 2009 at 6:32 am
[...] “Facebook’s In House Sociologist Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior” here sheds some light on what makes Facebookers tick. As with any statistical summary, one must consider [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 6:40 am
[...] hier, hier en [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 7:14 am
If we stopped and observed our ‘real world’ behavior, these stats still hold true. I can’t remember ever saying, “Gee, I wish I had more ‘friends’”. So, even though this data is interesting, I don’t find it especially enlightening. This relates to Strong vs Weak social ties. I tried to express some thoughts here, http://corporate.kayanta.com/index.php/58-Test.html.
I am also a fan of this type of data. Thanks for sharing.
-Rodney
February 27th, 2009 at 7:26 am
[...] via Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior . [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 8:04 am
This is indeed a question of strong and weak ties, and the question would rather be in which intervals of time (and during which periods) Facebook users communicate with certain friends.
The usage of Facebook will also differ between the users, some replacing other (online) communication means completely by using this platform while other will combine different social media for their weak and strong relations.
In addition, Facebook can also replace some traditional interactive communication: If I enter my status so that all my “friends” can see it, this information might be enough for a large number of persons. Instead of asking how another person feels or what s/he does I just look at his status, reducing the amount of visible information exchange (communication).
Altogether I would agree with Rodney that these figures – although interesting – are not really surprising.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:11 am
So very true!
But I do not have such a scewed ratio
Friends: 35
Leave comments on: 7
Messages: 4
February 27th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I agree with Rodney. This isn’t really new information, but reinforces what sociologists have been saying about online interaction for some time: that it reflects and heightens so-called “real life” relationships. It may be news for people (I’m thinking my over-30 peers) who still view social networking as somehow replacing how we interact in f2f.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Those figures were interesting, but he did not say how many of those 4/6/10/17/26 friends also ping each other, or whether they had the same number of friends.
February 27th, 2009 at 9:20 am
[...] From the Inside Facebook blog: “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,’” Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, says. [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Thanks, this is all very relevant to what I’m learning in my Interpersonal Communication class.
re: Lee Rainie’s comment
when users are broadcasting, others comment which can lead to relationships. Isn’t that network?
February 27th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Although these stats overlook certain variables they do give a general idea. I would say with a little more incentive to share and talk, I would expand my circle of friends on FB but I prefer the real world in which I have much more than 10 friends. Considering the fact that each of my friends might think the same it is quite probable that communication is scarce in my circle.
February 27th, 2009 at 10:19 am
[...] out that Facebook’s own “in-house sociologist” Cameron Marlow has documented a similar phenomenon on Facebook: The average male Facebook user with 120 [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 10:36 am
[...] Inside Facebook as summarized from The [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 10:49 am
[...] from Facebook, who has analyzed how people socialize on Facebook. The numbers are better summarized here. The key point is that people appear to have a close relationship (measured by regular [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Those numbers are a commentary about technology adoption and not a Dunbar Number, in my opinion. It’s consistent with participation rates for most social networking technologies – roughly 10% of users generate 90% of the traffic/content. My hypothesis is that if participation rates were higher, then the Dunbar circle would be much larger. I think there’s little if anything in those numbers that speaks to social behavior.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I think this information is very interesting, and consistent with what I’ve learned from other Facebook users. I make it a point to ask my friends how they utilize their Facebook in an effort to assist me with my social media for clients and my employer Vertical Measures.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:20 am
While the figures make perfect sense, we should realise these are averages that do not take into account age differences. You can expect teenagers to be much more active on Facebook and the older participants less so. Equally, these averages must take into account the “lurkers” who do nothing, so I suspect these averages are actually much lower than the true picture for mainstream users of Facebook. As ever, averages are helpful, but do not really tell us that much.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I blogged about the point of diminishing returns in terms of number of friends and Dunbar’s Number on January 6. http://www.twitterthoughts.com/social-media-news-analyses/2009/1/6/the-point-of-diminishing-returns-lessons-from-biology.html
February 27th, 2009 at 11:47 am
This seems to match what I see between my wife and I though both of us have found the total number of people we communicate has expanded somewhat. We both have reconnected with old friends, some of whom stay more “in the mix” on a day-to-day via Facebook than they ever did over the phone, email, IM or otherwise.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
[...] Facebook Generational Divide Posted on February 27, 2009 by Katie Today’s post on the Inside Facebook blog got me thinking about how Facebook users’ behaviors vary based on [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
uh, it’s been obvious for some time that fb and other social networking companies don’t get how social networks really work. They constantly promote adding more connections between individuals as opposed to identifying/enriching/protecting the meaningful ones that already exist. This is Soc. 101 stuff. Go read Barabisi’s Linked.
February 27th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I wrote about this recently:
http://scienceblogs.com/clock/2009/02/the_evolution_of_facebook.php
and we had a discussion of your post on FriendFeed:
http://friendfeed.com/e/2ecbd460-abec-4e9e-a1e3-06a55f51d59c/Facebook-s-In-House-Sociologist-Shares-Stats-on/
February 27th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
notice also that women do these things more than men. in all aspects. women are MORE social than men.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
[...] Via | Insidefacebook.com [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
[...] those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Over what time period are users posting/interacting? Per day? Per week?
It shows that the larger your group the more you have to interact. You see that with top bloggers/social media personalities, they never stop interacting. Not every one can do that, you have to “hyper-social.”
February 27th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
[...] seríamos capaces de vencer esta limitación y llegar a gestionar ingentes cantidades de amigos. Veo en Inside Facebook un post que hace referencia a una artículo publicado en The Economist los señores de Facebook han hecho [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
“…Broadcasting their lives…” is the key point to take away from this study. This in-depth look at user behavior shows that a person’s network is very much a compilation of activity streams; despite the fact that we may only interact within a ’smaller circle’ of friends, users enjoy the content and data extrapolated from a wide network.
February 27th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
What isn’t being explored, by these numbers alone, is the level of reciprocal interaction.
In some cases you invite people on Facebook to be friends in hopes that a deeper relationship will be formed. And perhaps you start out by sending messages, comments, etc. If there is little or no response, you don’t bother again.
In other cases, you are may be very close, but don’t exchange many messages. For example, if your close relatives are your Facebook friends, you may not bother to exchange comment when you’ll be talking to them on the phone or seeing them in person. Or you may not want to add social comments if you are using Facebook primarily for business networking.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
[...] the possible bio-sociological conclusions to be drawn from Facebook data. A few examples are here, here, here, here and [...]
February 27th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
If any of you want to see the charts that I used to research my piece (I’m the author of that article in The Economist), they are here.
February 28th, 2009 at 1:50 am
[...] http://www.insidefacebook.com [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 7:16 am
I also want to add is that the value in Facebook is the opportunity to stay in touch with people who you aren’t close to, either because of time, distance, or relationship.
I have about 800 friends and actually read everything that turns up in the live feed. I like to look at all status updates, who has added friends, what links everyone is posting, and so on. Most of that stuff doesn’t warrant a comment from me, but it is a way to monitor on a continuing basis the lives of people I want to know about. That allows me some context when I do want to reach out to them. I could not do this via letters, phone calls, or meetings.
February 28th, 2009 at 7:56 am
[...] Via | Insidefacebook.com [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 8:43 am
[...] It is a theory that I back, that people can only handle a certain amount of connections in a community – you might have 1000 friends but you only have a daily interaction with a dusin of them. a sociologist from facebook confirms that in this blogpost. [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 9:48 am
The figures were interesting
February 28th, 2009 at 11:30 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 11:57 am
[...] listed, but only regularly engage in community activity with a small number of those friends, Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior The famous Dunbar number, or “theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one [...]
February 28th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
These numbers are flawed in the sense that most people only leave comments and interacts with people which are featured on my newsfeed.
Facebook does not feature all your friends, but uses an algorithm to determine who shows up on your newsfeed and how often. I guess by doing this, it helps bring some sanity because live feed data may become too overwhelming if you have too many friends.
I know for a fact that if my newsfeed were updated more often, and featured more friends, I would definitely interact much more. Facebook unfortunately only offers full on live feeds and regular newsfeeds – nothing in between.
March 1st, 2009 at 7:55 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 9:17 am
[...] Facebooks hussociologer bekräftar det som många redan talat om och trott. Trots hundratals vänner interagerar såväl “typiska” män som kvinnor enbart med en liten krets av de som finns på kompislistan. Man talar inte längre om benämningen “nätverkande” utan snarare om “utsändningar” av det egna livet i form av foton, statusrader och liknande till ytterkanterna av de tidigare så omtalade Dunbar-cirkeln. [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 9:53 am
[...] some interesting statistics about the social network’s users (source: The Economist, via InsideFacebook). The average male Facebook user with 120 [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 4:07 pm
[...] the data from Marlow (source: insidefacebook.com from an Economist [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
[...] via Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior. [...]
March 2nd, 2009 at 6:12 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior "His findings: while many people have hundreds friends on Facebook, they still only actively communicate with a small few. Or to quote the author of the article, “Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.”" (tags: article facebook social sociology anthropology analysis) [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:13 am
“uh, it’s been obvious for some time that fb and other social networking companies don’t get how social networks really work. They constantly promote adding more connections between individuals as opposed to identifying/enriching/protecting the meaningful ones that already exist. This is Soc. 101 stuff. Go read Barabisi’s Linked.”
I think Facebook does a fine job of this. You don’t “meet people” or constantly add connections on Facebook, you already kow your friends. I only EVER use it to deepend and enrich existing connections, and I don’t see how it would be possible to use Facebook for anything else, unless you joined a lot of groups and were really active in them (but really, who is ACTIVE on Facebook groups?).
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:53 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior – Facebook stats from Facebook Sociologist. Dunbar 150 was interesting to hear. Much higher number of connections than 150, but only interact with 5-10% of them. More broadcast than interaction, and more adding than really communicating. [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 5:56 am
[...] expected, when a publication like the Economist writes an article about Facebook, people listen and people respond. The author noted on his own blog, “The point of the piece: to add a tiny bit to the [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
[...] pointed out in the article “Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior” (thank you Maryam for the wall post), there is a term called the Dunbar number, which [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 7:41 am
[...] Facebook users only interact with a few Despite those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
[...] recently reported that most users who have hundreds of friends in reality only really interact with between 5-10% of [...]
March 5th, 2009 at 4:57 am
I have recently co-authored an article that deals with gender differences in an online community similar to Facebook. It is called “Patterns and Dynamics of Users’ Behavior and Interaction: Network Analysis of an Online Community” and is forthcoming in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
http://toreopsahl.com/2009/03/06/article-patterns-and-dynamics-of-users-behaviour-and-interaction-network-analysis-of-an-online-community/
March 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I’ve written up something of an expansion on the ideas in this article here:
http://huntingcows.com/2009/03/03/facebook-as-a-broadcasting-mechanism-and-the-emergence-of-weak-social-ties/
Thanks to the author and commenters for further inspiration on a topic that started in my own facebook comments, led me here, then turned into a pretty epic post.
March 5th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
[...] Facebook’s "In-House Sociologist" Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior – While many people have hundreds friends on Facebook, they still only communicate with a small few. Or to quote the author of the article, quot;Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever.quot; [...]
March 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
[...] Więcej informacji. Lepsze możliwość sortowania informacji w aktualnościach po różnych kryteriach. Dotychczasowe aktualności były podzielone na sekwencje, np. w jednym miejscu “5 Twoich znajomych zmieniło zdjęcia profilowe” (a przecież nie zrobili tego w 1 sekundzie). Nowe aktualności będą bardziej zbliżone do Twittera, czy Blipa, czyli pokazywanie tego co się dzieje w real time. Przeciętny użytkownik Facebooka chce wiedzieć co się dzieje tylko u 5-10% swoich znajomych. Bardzo ciekawe dane na temat tego do ilu znajomych się odzywamy, ilu znajomych komentujemy zdjęcia i do ilu piszemy możecie znaleźć tutaj. [...]
March 6th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
[...] Hat/Tip: InsideFaceboo.Com for the summary. [...]
March 6th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
[...] juuri, sanoo tuore tutkimus. Riippumatta “Facebook-frendien” määrästä yhteyttä pidetään vain harvoihin ja [...]
March 7th, 2009 at 11:11 am
[...] 7, 2009 · No Comments This is somewhat well known but it’s good when a research confirms your feelings. People in Facebook actually interact with less than 10% of their Facebook [...]
March 8th, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior: More proof for my thought that Facebook (like many other pockets of social media) represents the [...]
March 8th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
[...] Inside Facebook: Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ So… [...]
March 8th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
[...] Mensen blijven dus dezelfde intieme cirkel vrienden houden, maar adverteren zichzelf via social networks efficienter naar hun buitencirkel. Zie ook Dunbar’s Number. Bron: InsideFacebook [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 12:16 am
[...] recently also read an interesting article by The Economist that looked at the actual limit to how many stable relationships humans can [...]
March 9th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
[...] weeks ago, Facebook’s “in house sociologist” Cameron Marlow shared interesting data with The Economist on Facebook users’ social behavior patterns – essentially, while Facebook [...]
March 10th, 2009 at 2:48 am
[...] (Web2Journal) * Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior (InsideFacebook) * 50 Youth Marketing Keywords You Need to Know (Slideshare) * Brandwidth – do you have it? [...]
March 12th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
[...] (מי אמר שאין מה לעשות עם תואר ראשון בסוציולוגיה?) אומר בראיון לאקונומיסט שלא רק שהרשתות החברתיות לא הרחיבו [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Very interesting but not at all surprising. This stuff is always good too know when trying to determine how your audience actually uses social media.
March 14th, 2009 at 3:44 am
[...] שאני לא ממציא כלום. הסוציולוג הראשי של פייסבוק פרסם ממצאים מעניינים על הרשת הזו בשבוע שעבר: לרוב האנשים אין יותר מ [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
[...] on Facebook” (via Inside Facebook via ICT4Peace) – On a related note, this is a glimpse at the social dynamics on FB; I wish there [...]
March 17th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
[...] Touch (360blog) * Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior (insidefacebook) * Japanese “hate” for iPhone all a big mistake (Appleinsider) * Brandwidth – do you [...]
March 19th, 2009 at 2:00 am
thanks for the valuable information.
anyway i used FB for my Joint Management Body which help our comunity a tad.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
[...] Facebook’s in-house sociologist, reports his findings about Facebook: The average male Facebook user with 120 friends: Leaves comments on 7 friends’ [...]
March 29th, 2009 at 8:05 am
[...] Kaynak: insidefacebook.com [...]
March 30th, 2009 at 2:52 am
[...] * Facebook’s “In-House Sociologist” Shares Stats on Users’ Social Behavior (Inside Facebook) * Brandwidth – do you have it? (Graham Brown mobileYouth) (Slideshare) * My Latest Ruby Pseudo [...]
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
[...] Facebook’s “In-House Sociologi… [...]
April 9th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
[...] she called Facebook users’ “active networks,” framing some recently published data on Facebook users’ social behavior for the agencies, brands, and marketers in [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Why do we need a Sociologist to tell us this? To me, it’s common sense.
April 26th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
[...] those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Are these stats monthly, daily, annual. The stats do not make much sense if you do not provide a timeframe.
May 20th, 2009 at 1:28 am
[...] niekuomet nepasakytų gyvai (apie vartotojų elgseną šiame socialiniame tinkle galite plačiau paskaitinėti čia)? Kas skatina skirti galybę laiko rašinėjant komentarus interneto naujienų portaluose? Tai tik [...]
July 13th, 2009 at 3:16 am
[...] kompastu. On esitetty, että ihminen kykenee hallitsemaan kognitiivisesti n. 150 ihmissuhdetta. Ja Facebookin oman tutkijan mukaan käyttäjät viestivät aktiivisesti vain n. 5%:n kanssa kavereistaan. Tästä voidaan laskea, [...]
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
It just shows that women are more sociable than males. But I think it is for the reason that more male Facebook users are there to market rather than socialize. There are also more male bloggers than female blogger, I think.
July 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Interesting Research, yes women are more sociable.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
[...] conducted by Facebook’s “in-house sociologist” Cameron Marlow last year and presented in May at the International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and [...]
August 5th, 2009 at 1:10 am
[...] Facebook users only interact with a few Despite those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across [...]
August 5th, 2009 at 2:15 am
[...] ihmisiä kaverilistallaan. Suurin osa virtuaalisista kaverisuhteista on kuitenkin löyhiä, sillä Facebookin oman tutkijan mukaan keskimääräinen käyttäjä, jolla on n. 120 kaveria, viestittelee aktiivisesti vain 5-10%:in [...]
September 2nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
[...] From VN:F [1.6.3_896]please wait…Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)VN:F [1.6.3_896]Rating: 0 (from 0 votes) [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:52 am
I know many months have passed since those stats were posted but I have never felt so average after looking at my own numbers.
September 10th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
[...] Concerned about feeling out of the loop unless you’re constantly in touch with your friends? Don’t worry, unless you’re exceeding social contact with more than 10 people a day you’re just acclimating to the environment shared by the rest of digital natives. Despite the fact that you’ve only got 50 Friends on Facebook you need to be aware that the numbers of close friends people keep in touch with is usually totally independent of this (most Facebooker’s only regularly exchange info with 5% or less of their Friends). [...]
October 8th, 2009 at 3:07 am
[...] those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across [...]
October 16th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
gotta love it! I was just wondering how many of her 4, 851 FB “friends” this lady I saw on FB, could actually communicate with…or was she just racing to see who could get the most friends? LOL
October 28th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
well, I believe that facebook is growing up stronger everyday
October 30th, 2009 at 1:03 am
well, I agree with this article… facebook is the best for social network