Learn about how many friends you can have at one time, according to research; why you might like talking to strangers more than you realize; and the golden record NASA once launched into space. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Despite Social Media, You Can Only Have 150 Friends at a Time — https://curiosity.im/2DPkND1 This Study Says You Might Like Talking to Strangers More Than You Realize — https://curiosity.im/2p5iBhh NASA Once Launched a Golden Record of Earth's Music Into Space — https://curiosity.im/2N4eSOp If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn about how many friends you can have at one time, according to research; why you might like talking to strangers more than you realize; and the golden record NASA once launched into space.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! https://www.patreon.com/curiositydotcom
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/you-like-talking-to-strangers-nasas-golden-record-and-your-actual-friend-limit
CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three of your favorite stories from the past year to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about how many friends you can have at one time, according to research. Why you might like talking to strangers more than you realize. And the Golden Record NASA once launched into space.
CODY GOUGH: Let's launch into some curiosity on the award winning Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY HAMER: You might have a lot of Facebook friends, but research suggests that there's a limit to how many friends you can maintain at the same time. Care to guess how many?
CODY GOUGH: 2,000.
ASHLEY HAMER: Is that how many Facebook friends you have?
CODY GOUGH: I think it's actually something around there.
ASHLEY HAMER: I think mine is too, yeah.
CODY GOUGH: It's a lot of friends.
ASHLEY HAMER: I have fewer Twitter followers than I have Facebook friends. But I'm working on it.
CODY GOUGH: We're like way above the average for Facebook friends.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, no big deal.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, it's not 2,000. I'll just tell you that. This number comes from Robin Dunbar. He's an anthropologist and psychologist at the University of Oxford. And Dunbar's number says you can only have, ready for it, 150 friends at a time. By friends he means casual friends. People you'd invite to a party, not people you'd introduce to your mom. And you can break that down into Dunbar's numbers.
Within that 150, you get about 50 medium close friends, 15 friends you can rely on for emotional support, and five intensely intimate friends. The intensely intimate friend number goes down to four if you have a romantic partner, since your partner takes up the bandwidth of two close friends. This number is backed by research. Across cultures, communities of 150 tend to thrive. And that counts companies too.
It's also common to have 150 members in military companies and other close knit communities like Native American tribes and Amish villages. Even on Facebook, where you probably know someone with 1,000 friends, the most common number of friends is about 120 or 130 according to Dunbar. Pretty close to 150, huh?
This is in part because friendships rely on two finite resources: your mental capacity, and your time. That might sound sad and restrictive but it doesn't have to be. Really, it's just a restatement of what we already know. Life is short. And you can't do everything or befriend everyone. Instead, you have to use the time and mental energy you have wisely. Maybe we should all be throwing more big parties too, so we can keep in touch with all 150 of our friends.
CODY GOUGH: According to a recent study loneliness is on the rise in the US. But when's the last time you struck up a conversation with a stranger. If you don't think that sounds fun, then you might want to think again. Because a new study says you might be happier if you talk to strangers. Do you ever talk to strangers, Ashley?
ASHLEY HAMER: Not as much as I bet you do.
[LAUGHS]
You seem like someone who strikes up conversations with strangers.
CODY GOUGH: Do you take rideshare pools?
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, I do. I try to talk during those ones but not everybody wants to talk.
CODY GOUGH: I always try to talk. And you can usually tell within a couple of seconds if the person wants to talk or not.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I don't make as big of an effort to talk to strangers as I should. But my boyfriend always tries to make every cashier laugh. That's always his goal every single time. It usually works.
CODY GOUGH: Very cool.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: On a new paper, University of Chicago researchers studied people commuting into Chicago on the train, which is a place where you're really surrounded by a lot of people you don't really know. The commuters were asked to either strike up a conversation with a stranger, or actively avoid contact with other people, or do whatever happened naturally. Afterward, the commuters mailed the researchers a questionnaire evaluating their experience.
The researchers compared their responses with responses from a second group of commuters. They were asked to imagine striking up a conversation with a stranger, avoiding other people, or commuting normally. It turned out that the commuters who chatted with strangers in real life had the most pleasurable commutes. But get this, when commuters imagined the experience, they pictured it as uncomfortable and rated it as the worst of the three commute approaches.
The researchers say this result means we have a severe misunderstanding of the psychological consequences of social engagement and they suggest that we choose solitude on our commutes out of a fear of rejection. But based on all the data the researchers gathered, people were happier actually talking to strangers almost every time they did it. That's a lot more than the 50/50 chance some participants thought they would have in successfully making a connection. So if you're feeling lonely, then try striking up a conversation with your next cab or rideshare driver, grocery store clerk, or person in line next to you at your favorite coffee shop. And let us know how it goes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Voyager 1 launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. And when it blasted off on September 5, 1977, it was carrying some pretty interesting cargo. Today, we're going to take a look at the Golden Records we launched into space on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Cody, you know that I'm a huge Carl Sagan fan girl, right?
CODY GOUGH: Yes, I do.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: I know you have at least one Carl Sagan t-shirt.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, yeah. That's my Carl Sagain's muscle shirt.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: All right. When you're wearing a muscle gains t-shirt with an astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist on it, yeah you're really going pretty niche there.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's the best.
CODY GOUGH: [LAUGHS] Is it the best?
ASHLEY HAMER: It really is.
CODY GOUGH: I know Carl Sagan has a lot to do with this story. So I guess this is something you're pretty excited about.
ASHLEY HAMER: It is. It's one of my favorite things. So let's talk about Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They have traveled farther than any other human made object, visiting every planet in our solar system along the way. In 2012, Voyager 1 left our solar system and entered interstellar space. And Voyager 2 is currently in the heliosheath, a transitional region just at the edge of our solar system.
Voyager 1 was actually launched after Voyager 2, but NASA named the probes based on the order they'd leave our solar system. Both probes are carrying a Golden LP Record with sounds and pictures of life on Earth. And for that, you can thank Carl Sagan. In 1972, half a decade before the Voyager probes launched, NASA's launched the Pioneer 10 probe. That was the first spacecraft to escape our solar system. Before it launched, Carl Sagan figured we could use the probe to talk to extraterrestrials. So he and his wife at the time got with SETI founder Frank Drake.
CODY GOUGH: Not Francis Drake.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS] And they designed a plaque for the probe with images of a man and a woman, Earth's place in the galaxy, and a diagram of the hydrogen atom. Fast forward to the Voyager probes and Sagan worked with experts to come up with the Golden Record. It's a 12 inch gold plated copper disk with 115 images, various sound clips, and 90 minutes of music from around the world. It also bares engravings of our place in the galaxy, along with visual instructions on how to play it, and a cartridge and stylus.
The images are encoded in analog form and include everything from science diagrams, to nature scenes, to a photo of Jane Goodall with chimpanzees. There are greetings from humans in 55 different languages, and more than two dozen musical selections, including Johnny B Good by Chuck Berry, Mozart's the Magic Flute, and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. You can see the full playlist in our write up on Curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
CODY GOUGH: Read about today's stories and more on Curiosity.com. And if you're listening to this podcast the day we're releasing it, I'd like to wish you a very Merry Christmas. Whether you're observing it as a religious holiday or you're just enjoying a nice day off work in countries like the US and the UK. And for everyone else, Happy Tuesday.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again tomorrow, for more of the best stories of the year on the award winning Curiosity Daily. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Merry Christmas and stay curious.
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