Our capacity for maintaining emotionally close relationships is finite.

We demote old friends as new ones arrive: Research finds there is a natural limit to the number of people we can stay in touch with

British and Finnish researchers found we have limited brainpower to accommodate friendships

• British and Finnish researchers claim not enough brainpower for wide circle
• Study tracked phone records of 24 students from school-university-work
• Overall number of best friends remained roughly the same at five per person

It is often said that you can’t have too many friends.

But it seems that there is a natural limit the number of people we stay in touch with.

A study found that when we make new friends, by starting a new job or going to university, we downgrade or even drop old ones.

Even in today’s world when mobile phones, email and social networking sites such as Facebook make it easy to stay in contact with large numbers of people, we spend most of our time speaking to a small number of close friends and relatives. 

And while the friends may change, the number stays roughly the same.

The British and Finnish researchers believe we may only have the brainpower to invest emotionally and mentally in a limited number of people. 

Oxford University researcher Felix Reed-Tsochas said: ‘Although social communication is now easier than ever, it seems our capacity for maintaining emotionally close relationships is finite.

‘At any point, individuals are able to keep up close relationships with only a small number of people, so that new friendships come at the expense of “relegating” existing friends.’

Dr Reed Tsochas asked 24 students in the final months of school to list all their friends and relatives and say how close to them they were.

The pupils filled in the questionnaire twice more after starting work or going to university.

They were also given free mobile phones and agreed to researchers could use their bills to work out who they called, when and for how long.