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Facebook friends won’t give you any comfort and having a large number of followers isn’t actually all it’s cracked up to be, a recent study has revealed.

The findings were based on research conducted by Robin Dunbar, a British evolutionary psychologist and anthropologist, affiliated with the University of Oxford’s Department of Experimental Psychology.

The acclaimed scientist previously calculated the maximum number of social connections that a person can actively maintain.

That figure, known as “Dunbar’s number”, has been measured at 150; beyond that threshold, it’s no longer possible for relationships to remain stable and cohesive enough, and it’s much more likely for participants to feel alienated from one another.

Now, Dunbar took his research one step further, in order to assess the authenticity of online relationships, which develop and are maintained on social networking platforms.

By examining the results of a survey conducted in the United Kingdom, across 3,375 Facebook users, aged 18 to 65, the psychologist was able to determine how many of these subjects’ virtual friends were actually genuine.

By and large, study participants had approximately 150 Facebook friends, who they could constantly update regarding important changes in their lives or more trivial pursuits.

And yet, despite having their whole existence under the lens of such a large group, subjects admitted that they could only rely on around 4.1 of these followers in times of need or when experiencing great distress.

They also revealed that they believed slightly more than a quarter (27%) of the bonds they had created online were authentic and valuable.

In addition, respondents declared that just 13.6 of those who were in their wide circle of Facebook friends showed any sympathy to them during difficult moments, the rest of the group ignoring them or displaying little consideration for their feelings of anguish.

As Dunbar explains, while these figures may appear overly low and disappointing, they are actually in accordance with his prior observations, centered around offline friendships.

When a person uses social media extensively, and develops an extremely high number of followers or friends, this doesn’t necessarily mean that these connections actually translate into a larger social group in real life.

Actually, people who are extremely active on social networking websites like Facebook generally have just as many offline relationships as their counterparts who don’t dedicate that much time to socializing online.

Dunbar also emphasized that social networking often involves befriending people just for the sake of it, without planning to ever speak to them or get to know them in real life.

Collecting “friends” with whom you share little in common and with whom you have no plans of interacting later on is a common practice nowadays, especially among the younger generation.

As a result, people in this age group tend to have a much wider virtual social circle, while older individuals focus less on expanding this group.

Instead, those who have already transitioned from adolescence into early adulthood and beyond it nurture more friendships in real life, eventually having much more companions who would support them and remain by their side when they’re at their lowest.

Online friendships do have an advantage, in that they allow people to artificially preserve relationships more easily, by contacting their pals once in a while, thus giving the illusion of staying in touch.

However, as emphasized by Dunbar, in the absence of real-world interaction, many friendships cannot survive that long, bonds growing weaker and weaker until they eventually break apart.

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“Who is this person and why are we friends?” Admit it, you asked yourself this question at least once since you created your Facebook profile. Chances are other people asked themselves the exact same question about you, and here is how the Unfriend routine was born.

On a more serious note, many Facebook Friends lists crawl with so called “Friends” who lie dormant in there, simply because there was no mutual interest between you and them.

Some people have a healthy habit of purging their friends list once in a while. They remove all the uninteresting names and get rid of spammers, humans they never talked to, profiles they never intend to check out, buddies who never said anything in the past years and so on.

However, it is frustrating and time consuming to just browse through all of them and manually Unfriend each. Some Facebook users also feel guilty for doing this. But not anymore!

Now you can cleanse your friends list, profile and news feed with the Duster. No, it is not that car from Renault, it is an app. Actually, this new free app helps you remove Facebook friends in a very simple manner without making you feel like an executioner passing the final judgement. The Duster selects those Facebook Friends you barely interacted with lately. Also, it pinpoints friends who are not a regular part of your Facebook life, but who are of true interest to you. As an example, maybe you never commented on some local VIP’s wall, but you read his / her posts religiously.

The Duster will make a difference among people you forgot, people who are of little or no importance to you and people you might want to stay in touch with. It will present you the results in the shape of a pinboard. Seeing everybody gathered there and listening to the app’s recommendations, you can make educated choices whether to remove some friends from your social circle or relight the fire of true friendship. In other words, the free app helps you remove Facebook friends but also reminds you that some people are there waiting for you to give a sign of life.

In order to use the Dust, you have to allow it to access your Facebook profile. Don’t worry, the Dust will only give you suggestions, it will not remove some of your friends on its own will and power. You can use the app not only to make room for new interesting people to stay in touch with, but also to have a clear picture of the ones you kind of lost along the way.