Do I really have 400+ friends?

I have 400+ friends on my Facebook. I always find the word "friend" in the context of social networks somewhat of an over-statement at least in terms of define the daily impact of the ‘RELATIONSHIP" with said friends. I know that there are not 400 folks that I interact with regularly as string friendships - heck, many days I feel like I have no friends to go to the mall with! But I have or have 400+ friends and that isn't a bad thing either!

I have made a very concerted effort with Facebook to accept friend request only from people I have had at sometime a more than casual friendship. With Facebook I created a list of 12 friend groups (i.e.: high school, college, church, various companies I worked at, etc...) by which I can break down the larger friend group. Now when I get friend requests if the person doesn't fit into one of these groups, I typically don't connect with them - so despite sounding large with 400+ members, my "friends" are people I have/had a relationship with and want to maintain a least that casual connection because of the role they played in my life.

This has been great in some ways - especially in reconnecting and catching up with high school, college and friends from Disney with whom the past 20 years I had drifted away from. It has also caused some angst with folks who I haven't met or don't know well enough when I decline a received friend request. Bur for me it works. I don't want to be the guy on MySpace with 5,000 friends - friendship is not a contest of numbers it is a reflection of the relationship and its impact on life.

400+ also doesn't seem out of sorts when you realize your current entourage of pals won't be there for you down the road.

People replace half their social network every seven years, researchers at Uterecht University in the Netherlands found in a new study. That finding goes against previous research that suggested social networks shrink over time, proving that people don't cut out their friends -- they trade up or the dynamics of association change and redefine the relationship (moving, changing jobs, etc...)

Researchers asked 1,007 people aged 18 to 65 questions like: "Who do you talk with regarding personal issues" and "Where did you get to know that person?" They then reconnected with 604 of the subjects seven years later to ask the same questions.

What they found was that people only confided with 30 percent of their former bffs, and only hung out with 48 percent of old friends.

Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst concluded that friend choices are determined by the context of where we meet them.