THROUGH the advent of social media we have been able to connect and share with more people than ever before.

In this digital age, we share our triumphs, heartaches, secrets and even mundane events with an average of 150 ‘friends’ on a daily basis. This is according to a study conducted by researcher, Robin Dunbar.

The evolutionary biologist reviewed two surveys to learn more about peoples’ virtual friendships.

The data from the 3 500 participants revealed that while people ‘know’ a lot of people online but they only have four friends they can count on through hard times.

Our digital world is built around numbers. One’s popularity is determined by how many ‘friends’, followers or ‘likes you’ have.

While you might think that most people therefore have thousands of online friends, you would also be wrong.

According to the study, most people have an average of 300 friends.

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