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Unrealistic? Researchers found that the number of very close friends people have is going down, despite Facebook and what popular sitcoms might say In this age of Facebook and Twitter, we are all supposed to have hundreds of friends. But in fact most of us have just two people we would consider to be close friends – down from an average of three 25 years ago, a study claims. Researchers say this is no cause for concern. Instead, they claim that while some of us may be getting ‘more vulnerable’, many are simply becoming more adept at deciding who they can trust to be a close confidant. The figure contrasts sharply with the race among the young to collect as many ‘friends’ as possible on social networking sites to prove their popularity. According to Facebook the average user has 130 friends, but many of these are chance acquaintances or people they will never meet in real life. But according to Matthew Brashears from the University of Cornwell, although this shrinking social network 'makes us potentially more vulnerable, we’re not as socially isolated as scholars had feared'. For his study, Mr Brashears used data from a nationally representative experiment. More than 2,000 adults ages 18 and older were surveyed from the nationally representative Time-sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) programme. | 
