Of Friends, Face-to-Face and Virtual

Always love to see math making it into the popular or mainstream press, so nice to see this Maria Konnikova article on Dunbar's Number and social networks (and the new ramifications of digital social media) in the New Yorker:

http://tinyurl.com/mx4qgmx

As the article states, "...no one really knows how relevant the Dunbar number will remain in a world increasingly dominated by virtual interactions," or as Dunbar himself is quoted, “We haven’t yet seen an entire generation that’s grown up with things like Facebook go through adulthood yet.”

There are potential neuroscience, and in turn social, implications to all this reliance on virtual interaction. It is, for now, a sort of grand, ongoing experiment, outcome unknown.