Facebook, Twitter and Dunbar's Number.

I hope you all had a good Christmas; I also hope you had a good Hanukkah and, if it apples to you, you are having a good Kwanzaa – which doesn't end till Saturday.

There we are that saves me saying a happy holiday which has become fashionable and a pain in the arse. The three holidays don't quite coincide like everybody having the same day to celebrate as with Thanksgiving; it's a pity they don't have Thanksgiving in the UK as it's not a religious thing and in a secular country like Britain it seems more fitting – but Christmas there is a mostly a secular holiday in any case so why bother?

It's also quite ironic that a country like Britain, who yearn for the picturesque White Christmas every year, were snowed in before Christmas but the snow disappeared on Christmas Day in most of the country.

I was looking at all the Facebook photos and videos of snow. I know we can see it on the news and other parts of the Internet but seeing it on Facebook kind if made it more personal.

A lot of people criticise Facebook and its kind of control over many people's lives and how they make friends on Facebook whom they never meet.

Well the term friend on Facebook and the saying friending is just what it is – a term. What it really means is that you are a reader; just like a follower or friend of The New York Times or The Guardian.

It's the same with Twitter; this isn't some kind of strange place to go to and find out if your friend has just used their bowels or is taking a cup of coffee – or even both at the same time and from what I've heard people do that!

I use Facebook sometimes as it's very useful to see our children's photos when we are so far apart and I use Twitter.

I use Twitter far more than Facebook as I am interested in the news. I follow The Guardian, CNN, The Huffington Post and various other people from whom I get information.

I also have this blog posted on Twitter and I can see that it pays off with lots of hits; yes I can see, from my STAT Counter where all the hits come from.

I follow Stephen Fry who has a few million followers and Miss Daisy Frost – who also follows me on Twitter and is a friend on Facebook – who is, or purports to be a junior literary agent and is a gal about town in London. I don't expect to meet any of them but I like the quick quips, the news and articles I am drawn to and do you know how long I spend on Twitter? 5 minutes a day.

But Twitter and Facebook – or the idea of them – is nothing new.

News sheets appeared on walls and trees in towns and villages of old; the court would issue circulars for the plebs to read – well now the plebs write their own news. The clever newspapers told us very cleverly what to read and now the people are writing their own news and if it says that the news is they are taking a shit so what? – it's news to their friends and my friends don't tell me that; not yet anyway.

People have maybe hundreds of friends on Facebook and an interesting thing to me is the amount of friends they have.

Movie stars have millions of friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter and the likes of you and me have far less; but those numbers are very interesting.

If you don't know what it is let me introduce you to Dunbar's Number.

Dunbar's number is the number of people that you can, realistically, keep in touch with; any more than this number would need some kind of organising; what would that number be? According to Professor Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist who worked this out, it is between 100 and 230 but a commonly used value is 150.

Also, according to some research, numbers larger than this would need rules or even laws to maintain a stable group.

There are lesser numbers but nobody has given them a name yet but they are easy to work out; I was going to call them Sullivan numbers but won't be so egotistical and in any case I'll give them the names they have always been called later; they would be the numbers for the amount of immediate friends you can easily deal with – shall we say about 10.

These 10 friends would be your best friends – you may even have one of these as a best friend – a BFF as they are called now. Personally I have never had one best friend; always a few best friends.

Then there are your extended friends – shall we say about 20 - 30; these will be the people you may meet or work with most days of the week; people you know well enough to have a chat with if you meet them.

The next figure would be close to Dunbar's number – 120; these could be the people who work at the same place you do – the workplace whatever that may be - and whom you would just say hello to if you met them.

So we have your 10 friends, which we will now call a squad; your 30 friends, which we will call a platoon, and your 120 Dunbar number friends which we will call a company or a troop.

So these magic figures, which have always been with us as squad, platoon and company, are all military words and put together they form a battalion; 2 or more battalions form a regiment and loads of those form a whole army.

So people on Facebook can put themselves in those categories and Mark Whatshisname commands more than an army – he commands a nation.

So instead of the Marxist doctrine of workers of the world unite it's Facebook of the World – who have already united to make Facebook what it is today - a monstrance to it's founder . . . .

Of course – as I have said before 'What do I know?'

Happy New Year!