Topical Teaching

It is a shame that many youngsters would prefer collecting Facebook friends rather than taking the time and energy to cultivate real ones:

Some people like to have a few close friends on Facebook, while others have hundreds who they barely know.

Researchers now believe that the number of friends you have can depend on how successful you are, and even how often you move.

Researchers from the University of Virginia and the London Business school say the ‘perfect’ number of friends actually depends on several socioeconomic factors, and varies from country to country.

Shigehiro Oishi, a psychology professor in the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences, and Selin Kesebir of the London Business School explored the benefits of social networking strategies in two studies currently published in the journal Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

‘In the age of Facebook, many Americans seem to opt for a broad, shallow networking strategy,’ they say.

‘Yet cross-cultural research has shown that having many friends is not always viewed positively outside the United States.’

One reason that Americans may prefer a large social network, the researchers claim, is because Americans move around a lot.

Another important factor may be the economic conditions at a given time.

‘When times are prosperous, your friends are less likely to need much help, whether it’s covering a hospital bill or providing babysitting, and so a broad network of friends is easy to maintain,’ they claim.

‘But when times aren’t as flush, having more friends might incur huge costs in terms of both time and resources.’

Click on the link to read Parents and Teachers Should Not Be Facebook Friends

Click on the link to read Introducing the App that will Give Parents Nightmares

Click on the link to read Facebook’s Ugly Little Secret

Click on the link to read Facebook and Child Exploitation

Tags: facebook, Facebook friends, friends on Facebook, London Business school, number of friends you have on Facebook, Selin Kesebir, Shigehiro Oishi, social media, social network, University of Virginia, University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences

This entry was posted on December 18, 2012 at 11:18 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.