Too Much of a Good Thing? The Relationship Between Number of Friends and Interpersonal Impressions on Facebook

Abstract

A central feature of the online social networking system, Facebook, is the connection to and links among friends. The sum of the number of one’s friends is a feature displayed on users’ profiles as a vestige of the friend connections a user has accrued. In contrast to offline social networks, individuals in online network systems frequently accrue friends numbering several hundred. The uncertain meaning of friend status in these systems raises questions about whether and how sociometric popularity conveys attractiveness in non-traditional, non-linear ways. An experiment examined the relationship between the number of friends a Facebook profile featured and observers’ ratings of attractiveness and extraversion. A curvilinear effect of sociometric popularity and social attractiveness emerged, as did a quartic relationship between friend count and perceived extraversion. These results suggest that an overabundance of friend connections raises doubts about Facebook users’ popularity and desirability. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2008.00409.x New forms of computer-mediated-communication (CMC) are raising questions, about the relationship between communication activities and interpersonal judgments. Communication technology has evolved beyond the means by which senders had more or less complete control over the impression-related information that receivers could observe. With the advent of new social technologies, users no longer have to rely on an individual’s self-composed emails, chat statements, or personal web pages to garner impressions about a subject. Users employ strategies unique to CMC including browsing archived transcripts of discussions and chats, surfing personal and institutional web sites, or using search engines to uncover a variety of