IT’S an addiction apparently, the need to fill up your Facebook friendship quota with everyone you’re acquainted with, even if you can’t remember their surname without double checking and have no idea what colour their eyes are.

Even if they’re the sort of person you’d duck into Home Bargain to avoid, on the pretence of really needing a 28-pack of patterned toilet roll, it’s pretty impossible to click the “ignore” option when they offer the virtual hand of friendship.

Addictions experts claim this gathering of vague acquaintances together and displaying the total for all to see is a compulsion – implying, perhaps, a need for attention, a replacement for the modern day lack of community, for nuclear families and not knowing the neighbours.

And now an Oxford University professor has discovered you could never maintain a decent relationship with them even if you are determined to try.

While Facebook states the maximum number of friends as 5,000, evolutionary anthropology professor Robin Dunbar, who happens to be from Liverpool, places it at 150.

That’s the number of relationships we are each capable of maintaining due to the size of our neocortex – the part of the brain used for language and conscious thought.

Dunbar’s research of village and tribe sizes fits into this theory with neolithic villages containing around 150 inhabitants and Roman armies made up of around 150 soldiers.

While this puts pay to those who stroke their egos by amassing Facebook friends in quadruple figures, it doesn’t do much for boosting the confidence of those who choose to maintain an intimate group of friends.

Maybe Dunbar is a particularly likeable chap, but 150 seems a lot of people to maintain a close relationship with.

We’re talking friends, not acquaintances, people who you keep in touch with even if they’ve moved to Timbuktu.

People who, should they suddenly reject all social media and change their email address, you would still have the means to get hold of them.

If someone told me they had 150 friends, outside of the cosmos of Facebook, I would assume they were hedging their bets.

That’s a lot of birthdays to remember, Christmas cards to send, house moves to keep track of, married names to assimilate, children’s ages to recall. . .

But then people view friendship differently – some grateful to have a handful they can share their world with, others are always embracing the chance to meet new faces.

Some of us seek friendship in our parents or partners; some look for women, others for men; many of us look for someone we can confide in, while plenty of others want someone who’s just good for a laugh.

I often find it hard to keep track on my friends, especially, if I’m honest, those who work in sectors that prefer you not to have a Facebook page.

We play unintentional games of tag on each other’s answer phones, swap emails from afar that never seem in sequence and brief text messages about our day.

“In Laos, Lonely Planet says it’s a veritable ‘tonic for the soul’,” writes one, who is travelling in the Far East with no estimated date of return.

Another texts: “Laid up watching lots of Murder She Wrote. Cabot Cove rocked by revelation Jessica’s tragically deceased husband may have had affair.”

Neither message needs to be signed for me to know who they’re from and it doesn’t matter if it’s a while until we’re in touch again.

Because although you may be able to put a figure on friendship, you can’t give it a value.

IF YOU’VE enjoyed this column you can read more by Laura Davis at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/lauradavis

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