Ideal Network Size

How many friends did you have in Middle School – people with whom you spent non-class time? Maybe you sat with them at lunch or waited with them outside the building before the bell rang? Or maybe you spent time with them in some club. Maybe you walked part of the way home with them if you missed the bus.

How about in High School? Were you the gregarious social butterfly with dozens of friends and hangers-on? Perhaps you had just a small, intimate circle of like-minded misfits – the crew from the debate team or science club, or maybe a bevy of math nerds? We all need a social support network. The need for such a network increases rather than decreases with age, I think.

It was 2002 or maybe 2001. I had convened an expert panel on the social dimensions of health in the aged at the Texas Department of Human Services. I was trying to assess the quality of life (QoL) of people living in Texas long-term care facilities. The panel experts were professors of social work who described themselves as “Leisure Activity Professionals.” It was an interesting session. I no longer remember what network size they thought necessary to maintain optimal psychological health, but I’m going to guess twenty or more. I don’t think that I have ever had that many friends – maybe just a dozen at any given time.

I’m ruminating about this tonight because I have read a dozen or more clinical articles in the past months that addressed social connectedness as a determinant of mental health. Some of these articles focused on geriatric populations and the impact of self-reported loneliness. Loneliness was reported to have a health impact similar to smoking 15 cigarettes/day. I do not suffer from loneliness, but I have, at times in the past, smoked more than 15 cigarettes/day, and I recognize the noxious effects. Other articles, including one that I read today, addressed the impact of social isolation and social networking on children 10-19 years old.

It seems that since 2006 or 2007, children in that age range have been seen more frequently in our Emergency Departments for depression, self-harm and attempted suicide. Madre!

Some researchers attribute the increase to the pandemic and the social isolation that it has visited on our society, but the trend goes back more than a decade before the pandemic. Other researchers attribute the increase to the noxious effects of social media and constant virtual communication – enter the smart phone.

I myself can say that in my early dalliances with FB, I became a member of a number of groups with a political bent – supporters of Hillary, groups that identified as liberal, feminist, etc. My initial reaction to these groups was positive, but later they took a turn to the dark side. One by one, I left them. There was always someone ready to question my honesty or my intent regarding even the most anodyne comment. It became clear that some of the group members had signed up with the intent of converting others to their viewpoint. Did these interactions make me feel good about myself? Fuck no!

These days I have 140 or so FB connections. Perhaps 20 of them are folks with whom I have or have had a real-world relationship – most often from the world of work. They know who I am, and we rarely have adverse interactions. The remainder are folks that I have met in cyberspace. With them I share professional or avocational interests, and almost all of our interactions are supportive and salutary. I still belong to a couple of quasi-political groups that present themselves as safe spaces for thoughtful political commentary, but I find those groups increasingly strained. Too many folks seem poised to be offended. I may have to drop out of them soon.

I doubt that I will be missed, and as my good bro Rick Harbolovic used to say decades ago, “I don’t need this Agro.”