Snowcrashing

Challenging Dunbar: Gist.

Posted on 19. Sep, 2009 by Antonella Stellacci.

A known principle in the social relationship science is the Dunbar’s number.  Dunbar was a British anthropologist who theorized that, because of our cognitive limits, we can maintain only a limited number of relationships, in which we really know who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. The number after which you become socially numb (or dumb) was identified to be 150.

In our hyper-connected society, even the most socially inept has a network bigger than 150 “contacts”. But keeping up with all of them is becoming a nightmare and a challenge for businesses where each contact has a very measurable dollar value.

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