Thanks to Bill Ives for pointing out this article on “Social Network Size in Humans, by British scientists. R.A. Hill and R.I.M. Dunbar. These researchers used Christmas card distribution lists as their metric for evaluating social networks:

This paper examines social network size in contemporary Western society
based on the exchange of Christmas cards. Maximum network size averaged
153.5 individuals, with a mean network size of 124.9 for those individuals
explicitly contacted; these values are remarkably close to the group
size of 150 predicted for humans on the basis of the size of their neocortex.

I have my own theories of optimal sizes for social networks but they are based on the best numbers for parties: 8 for dinner; 50 for cocktails; 150 for a wedding. I am an inveterate party-giver and these numbers just seem to work well in terms of the social dynamics.

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