Keep Me in Mind

I’m reading a very interesting book called The Overflowing Brain. The author’s central premise is that our brains have remained relatively unchanged for 40,000 years, and his main question is “How does a Stone Age brain cope with the vast amounts of information in our digital world?”.

I haven’t finished the book, so I don’t yet know his answer to that question, but one part in particular jumped out at me.

Some background:

In the book The Tipping Point, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, studies “the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable,” and he states that it takes three kinds of people acting in concert: Connectors, who have “an extraordinary gift” for making friends; Mavens, who are information specialists; and Salesmen, charismatic people with powerful negotiation skills.

In the section on Connectors, he mentions that these people have very large social networks, usually numbering around 150 people. Gladwell further states that 150 is about the maximum number of people you can maintain deep social ties with (this is defined as people whose birthdays, interests, favorite movies, etc. you know and keep up with – not just knowing their names).

The reason this was called to mind is that in The Overflowing Brain, the author asks why the Cro-Magnon brain was so large, since they didn’t have the amount of information to deal with that modern man does. A theory was suggested that it was used for keeping track of social interactions. The study that was consequently carried out seemed to bear out this theory. It was discovered that the smaller the cortical area (the part we use for processing information and memory) in relation to the total size of the brain, the smaller the social circle maintained by the animal (in this case, primates). According to the chart generated by the research, modern man’s cortical area can support a social network of about 150 people.

I thought that was cool: Our brain size determines the number of close friends we keep.

So next time someone wants to send you a friend request on Facebook, tell them your brain is full.