Do not let your online persona consume you.

When I was young, connections used to be meaningful. For each friend I had, I can name their favorite game, their secret crush, or at the very least, their whereabouts. Things differed when I grew older: My circle of friends changed every five or so years, and people who I once knew well are now gradually fading from memories. It is part of growing up and growing apart -- that much I know; but dealing with such changes can be difficult sometimes. For that reason, I used to dread when a long-forgotten acquaintance contacted me out of the blue: 9 out of 10 times, they were borrowing money or selling me something -- or both (The remaining 1 time is to invite me to their wedding.) Such ulterior motives were impure and cheapened our friendship -- or so I thought.

In 1992, Robin Dunbar, a British anthropologist who is famous for reasons to be disclosed, were studying primate brain size and primate social groups. He noticed a pattern: The larger the volume of a species' neocortex is, the larger the size of a stable social group in that species. Using data from 38 primate genera, he extrapolated that the "mean group size" for a human being is around 148 connections. Noted, this number is merely a suggestion, as the margin of error is quite large, ranging from 100 to 230 connections. Nevertheless, the number (often rounded up to 150) gained infamy and is often known as Dunbar's number: The number of maximum meaningful connections that a human being can have. Although the number is often contested, the idea of such a number is not: That there exists an upper limit of how many people we can care about in a genuine, meaningful way. Given how limited our capacity for meaningful connections is, there are absolutely no reasons to be upset over someone connecting (or re-connecting) with me for their own ulterior motives. In fact, I now welcome those who come to me with something to sell to me -- at least their motives are transparent from the start. A transactional relationship, where I gain some and others gain some, is a win-win in my book; and there are no reasons to shy away from it now that we are all grown-ups with a living to be made. Now I only need to watch out for people who are connecting with me for no reasons at all: Are they interested in my time? My money? My advice? My products? I have to guess, and I do not like to guess.

The implication for Dunbar's numbers (plural because there are a few more number, as seen in the photo below) is clear: It is not a good idea to be friends with your customers, nor is it to turn your friends into customers (perhaps Tupperware moms and bartering groups can make it work, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule, and those are usually small-scale operations anyway.) LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media giants understood this; and although they may call our audience "friends" or "connections", let us be brutally honest: We are not building any meaningful connection on these platforms, at least not effectively; and we should rather focus on building an audience instead. This is the rationale behind Facebook's Marketplace, LinkedIn's Sales Navigator, and TikTok's Shop: To help you turn your thousands of friends/followers/ connections into leads and prospects and, finally, sales. Unfortunately, this also competes with our mental space for our close friends and family and creates a paradox: That an increasingly connected world leads to more loneliness and social isolation than ever (See also: The loneliness epidemic.) A stranger may look at an influencer's hundreds of thousands of followers and think he/she well-liked and popular, while in reality he/she may be lonelier than anyone else. To escape from this crippling loneliness, they may assume an online, public persona -- the aspects that they let online strangers see -- and let it gradually take over their other personas: That of a loving significant other, of a caring parent, or of a loyal friend. Eventually, the public persona consumes their whole personality, turning them into a walking advertisement for their very popularity. This, in my opinion, is a tragic end.

Our mental space is limited, yet the wealth of information unknown to us seems endless. This current age of information and connectivity has been both a blessing and a curse: A blessing because the right information and connection can liberate us and take us to new heights; a curse because if we do not proceed cautiously, we will be inundated with trivia and tidbits and will ultimately squander our potentials. Let us take the time to separate our public persona from our family persona; to welcome transactional relationship in which we seek quid pro quo but also to separate that from our other, more intimate relationships; and to prioritize the connections and information that truly matter.