63. The "Strong Tie" Group Size Limit is 150 People

Social Group Size Limit

• Think about how many people you are friends with on all of your social media platforms.
• Then think about how many people you are friends with from organizations, like school, and your personal friends and family members.
• How many people are in your network overall?
• Did you know there is a social group size limit?
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Dunbar's Number

• How Many Friends Can You Actually Have? (Embed)
• Robin Dunbar (1988)
• Formula for calculating the limit of stable relationships in social groups for different species of animals and for humans
• 150 people is the social group size limit for humans
• This is in reference to relationships where you know each person and how each person relates to every other person in the group

Does this Number Seem Low?

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• 150 is the group size for communities that are incentivized to stay together.
• In the digital world, many of the connections we have are not the strong, stable relationships that Dunbar is referencing.
• 150 is in reference to strong connections where everyone knows everyone and people are likely in close proximity.

About the "Weak Ties"

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• Weak ties - relationships that don't require everyone to know everyone else in the group and are not based on physical proximity
• Social media allows us to quickly and easily expand these "weak" ties and are extremely relevant in our modern world.

Key Takeaways

• Your "tribe" limit is approximately 150 people, and if you do not have this close community, you may feel isolated or stressed.
• Your relationships that exceed outside of this range, like social media friends, are likely weak relationships.
• If you are designing something that utilizes social connections, decide whether you are designing for the strong ties or the weak ties.
• For strong ties, there needs to be some sort of consideration for the physical proximity of people and how they interact.
• For weak ties, know that people won't communicate directly among all the people in a person's network.