Do Smart People Have More Facebook Friends?

We all know that social media profiles often come into play when employers are evaluating job applicants and making hiring decisions. But what if employers also began considering how many Facebook friends you have as a judge of your intelligence?

A new study by scientists at University College London have found a direct link between the number of Facebook friends a person has and the size of particular brain regions. The scientists conducted MRIs on 125 university students, all active Facebook users, and found that people with more Facebook friends have more grey matter -- the brain tissue where processing is done -- in four regions of the brain: the amygdala, the right temporal sucus, the left middle temporal gyrus and the right entorhinal cortex.

More specifically, another recent study showed that the amygdala, a region associated with processing memory and emotional responses, appears to have more grey matter in people with a larger network of real world friends. But the UCL study showed the same is true for the other three areas of the brain, although those areas only seem to correlate with online relationships.

"The exciting question now is whether these structures change over time -- this will help us answer the question of whether the Internet is changing our brains," Dr. Ryota Kanai, first author of the study, told Reuters.

Among the group of participants, the average number of Facebook friends was 300, while the highest number was around 1,000.

What are your thoughts? Do online social connections make you smarter? How many Facebook friends do you have?