Are we only capable of 150 friends?

Tuesdays are dedicated to what some may not consider a part of wellness, but brain and emotional health are all a part of wellness. Today's blog was inspired by an article I read about humans having a pre-determined limited social number. This especially seems more relevant today with social networks (Facebook and Twitter), where people have hundreds or even thousands of friends. It seems that humans may be limited in their social relations, in that we can only know so many humans and have them relate to us. So what is this so called number? Oxford professor of evolutionary anthropology Robin Dunbar has determined that humans max social group is around 150. After much study and comparison, he came to the conclusion that the larger the neocortex in the brain, the larger social number. He compared and came up with numbers for 62 primates, humans had the largest number because we have the largest neocortex. He surveyed neolithic villages and tribe sizes, Hutterite settlement splitting size, and Roman army units; all of which seemed to function best at about 150. He does state though that in order for this to occur  42% needed to be devoted to social grooming. Which makes you question because humans don't really groom, but he goes on to explain that humans developed talking as a cheap version of grooming (so is it practical and do we really function at 150? Probably not). Further more it claims we can maintain an intimate circle of about 12! How is this number relative today in our society, where we have social networking sites and loads of friends, we all know that friends are important for social health?  In studies they conclude that although technology has advanced, our mental capacity hasn't. Looking at those with hundreds (or even thousands of friends) of friends, those people really only relate to about the same number of people as though with less friends. Which completely makes sense, how easy is it to just click add friend, not even paying attention to whether you actually know them? I'm guilty of having friends that I don't know or having people on my networks that I don't know or follow. Companies working at 150 mark have shown success, any more than that and the balance is teetered. It's interesting to learn that we could be hard-wired for a set number of friends.