Bangalore: It’s believed that people have widened their friendship circle with mobile technology and social media. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are being used as a means to build new relationships and to refresh the existing ones. However, on contrary, a new study by the University of Oxford found that irrespective of these social networks, people’s ‘social signature’ is less likely to change over time.

The study has tracked changes in the communication pattern of 24 students over a period of 18 months. The phone records, questionnaires and other survey methods revealed that even after getting new friends, people have the tendency to get connected only to their close friends. “Although social communication is now easier than ever, it seems that our capacity for maintaining emotionally close relationships is finite,” said Felix Reed-Tsochas, a lecturer at Oxford’s Business School. Inspite of the proliferation of communication services people are always confined to their small friendship circle

The study also showed that new friendships come at the expense of replacing the existing ones. “As new network members are added, some old network members are either replaced or receive fewer calls,” said Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford. Dunbar’s earlier research on this area had created huge waves as it found that Facebook is not a means to expand the social circle, no matter how many friends you have.  Several other studies were also conducted on the negative effects of social media and mobile phones. Last year, a study by the University of Michigan discovered that Facebook use declines subjective well-being in young adults, and two German universities found that 1-in-3 people felt bad after visiting Facebook.

All these points out that social media serve its function but it has no role to play widening relationship circle. It’s the high time to implement other techniques that will trigger people emotionally.

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