Technology & our social connectivity to others.

I have been thinking a lot recently about technology- the internet, iphones etc- and the role they play in our social connectivity to others.

Typically social connections are family, extended family and multiple tiers of friendships. Differing tiers of friendship is a concept sometimes challenging to reconcile; some relationships shift organically in and out of life; whilst others break down and disconnecting from them can seem involuntary and forced.

Dunbar’s number provides a rational explanation for movement of people in and out of our life; theorising a cognitive limit to the number of social relationships that can be maintained at once.

Social technology has transformed the way we connect with others; connectivity is abundant, people very easily flow into our life and less easily out; highlighted by the recent facebook iteration prompting reconnection with friends whom you’ve had no recent interaction.

As our use of social technology increases and we are fed more information- birthdays, mutual friend’s etc- we rely less on our cognitive ability to retain that information allowing us to maintain a larger number of social relationships. Where previously we have learned that some people come in and out of our lives for a reason; now technology acts as a safety net, people come into our lives for a reason- and stay, even once the reason has expired.

Perhaps Dunbar’s number relates more to the social relationships we retain in our consciousness and technology’s impact is the speed at which people move in and out of that; technical connectivity has made our consciousness become dynamic and real time, largely dictated by who is updating their status or engaging in other activity online.

There needs to be a balance between our technical connectivity and the natural flow of people in and out of lives; acknowledge that people move in and out of our lives like a pendulum and often the best thing for us to do is just to let it swing.