‘I get by with a little help from my friends’ sang The Beatles and for many of us the saying rings true. Friends are a source of fun, comfort, support; people whose company you enjoy and whom you enjoy being around. Being surrounded by friends is a gift that should be cherished; however, is there such a thing as having too many friends?

People have various social networks that they interact with – family members, colleagues, friends from school, friends from the gym and, more recently, friends from Facebook. We used to be able to classify which people were friends and which were merely acquaintances; however, with the ability to virtually interact with hundreds of people by simply clicking a button and sending a ‘friend request’ these categories have become blurred and ill-defined.

Whereas a friend is someone who you are close to and share each other’s life details with, an acquaintance is a person whom you might see on a regular basis and would say hello to – but it stops there. You wouldn’t know the different facets of their lives. However, what if they are also a Facebook friend and updating their status, recounting their day, divulging their favourite pastimes, announcing what events they’re attending and allowing you to know details of their lives – do they still remain acquaintances?

Research has shown that the average person has 3-5 very close friends whom they would feel comfortable opening up with and talking to about sensitive issues, and it’s said that the human brain is capable of dealing with about 150 meaningful relationships; yet you wouldn’t know this if Facebook was to be used as a basis with most people having a few hundred ‘friends’, and some even passing the 1,000 mark. I therefore decided to ask a few people who have surpassed this number about their Facebook terms and conditions when it comes to accepting friends.

For businesswoman Marlene Mizzi, Facebook is about networking and her 3,500+ friend count is a result of her EP election campaign as this provided an effective platform for her to keep in contact with her supporters. Naturally, she does not know each and every one on a personal level, however she does know many, “some personally, some by sight and some by fame”. When it comes to very close friends, she declares that she has “very few close friends in real life let alone on FB!! I have very, very, very few close friends who are also on FB.”

On the other hand Alan Attard and ‘Flossy Jones’ claim that they know their 1,000+ friends list in some way or other.

“I can’t really say that I know them all very well of course, however I have met them all at some point or other either through university, work, or various international seminars and conferences” said Flossy. Meanwhile Alan said that he has met a “minimum of 99%” of the people who appear on his friends list. Both say that they have 30 very close friends, although they have “nothing to do with Facebook,” explains Alan. “I would put the number at around 30 people whom I would feel comfy calling at 3am to bail me out of the trouble kind of thing…”

His criteria for adding or accepting friends are “I either met them once (for example a friend’s date at a do at my place). We can’t really not be friends if we are in pics together kind of thing…g/fs of mates (who I often remove after break ups if we didn’t really become friends)”.

In fact, it’s very common to meet someone once and then find a FB friend request from them shortly after. Could it be that this is the modern way of wanting to keep in touch with the person without having to go through the potentially embarrassing moment of asking to exchange phone numbers? There are no obligations to call that way. You can either pass a comment on their status, or ‘Like’ it for minimum effort – either way you’re making your presence known.

With the job of ‘making friends’ becoming so easy has friendship become a numbers game or do the old values still count in today’s social networking world? All three respondents believe that Facebook is merely a convenient way of keeping in touch with people whom you don’t see regularly. As Marlene puts it, “FB is just social networking not friendship. Friendship is something else and involves deeper sentiments than typing impersonal messages on the internet.”

So what happens when your ‘friends’ are no longer your ‘friends’? Having ‘friend’ clear ups is a normal practice on Facebook for various reasons – “I feel that if I am unable to remember who certain people are, then it is pointless bothering them with my constant status updates and picture uploads ” claims Flossy.

And as I finish writing this I currently have 6 friend requests of people whom I don’t think I know and who didn’t send an introductory message with their Friend Request. I haven’t hit the Ignore button yet; however, my finger is beginning to inch closer to it.

Published in TECHNOLOGY SUPPLEMENT, The Sunday Times – March 28, 2010