Sure, you may feel really popular because you have 1,500 friends on Facebook. But how many of those people are really your friends?

According to British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, there is a cognitive limit to the number of friends one can truly maintain. Dunbar places the limit to 150 people, a number he asserts also applies for Facebook.

Dunbar has pegged the number of friends one can have at 150 since the 1990s — it’s called “Dunbar’s number.” But this new study is his first examination of how Facebook impacts this.

“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” he told The Times of London.

One student said he mostly envisioned Facebook as a way to casually keep in touch with acquaintances.

“I know all my Facebook friends. They’re people in my immediate community. Like friends from high school and college and family, too,” said Michael Peters, a junior communication major.

In order to truly culture a friendship with each and every person on the friend list, people need to take the time to regularly comment on other people’s pages and update their own statuses, said Ron Yaros, a journalism professor who studies social media.

“However one defines the ‘maintenance of friendships on Facebook,’ it is obviously much easier to interact with 150 friends today than it was twenty years ago,” said Yaros. Students in his Information 3.0 “I”-series course seem to think college students spend more time communicating with friends virtually than vis-à-vis, said Yaros.

“I just started deleting all of the friends I don’t talk to anymore. I had thousands of friends. There was no reason I should’ve been friends with them anyways,” said Andy Sotak, a junior finance major.

Dunbar noted a gender disparity in terms of relationships, which hints that media channels like Facebook better suit women.

“There is a big sex difference though … girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together,” Dunbar said.

In a study measuring the overall “happiness” of its users and based on user statuses and the USA Gross National Happiness Index, Facebook reports that people who are in relationships seem happier than those who are not in relationships. People that seem most unhappy do not disclose their relationship status or claim they are in an “open relationship.”

One student said she actually thought the report should have indicated the opposite that people in Facebook relationships are unhappier than the norm.

“When you’re on Facebook you can find out what people are hiding from you. It’s harder to keep secrets from your partner,” said Sheri Winegardner, senior finance major.

Peters said: “Most of the relationships I see on Facebook are fake. I see a lot of friends who are listed as married.”

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