(Nov. 23, 2010) — Breaking news! People have started to add people they don’t know as friends on Facebook. Well, actually, it’s not news to most of us. We all know it is happening. According to Facebook, random adds are becoming more and more common, due to the publicity people can obtain on Facebook. Sophomore Melineeh Hairapetian said, “Even though I don’t have a Facebook account right now, I still think it’s great tool used to become more popular between classmates.” Large numbers of members are not the only reason for many seemingly random friend requests but also users’ bad perceptions on who is really their friend. “It’s creepy to randomly add someone. You never know if they will look through your pictures, wall posts, or simply stalk you,” said senior Lynette Hacopian. “I have never randomly requested anyone, but I have gotten many requests from people I don’t know.” She said she has about 700 friends on Facebook, all of whom she is quite familiar with. According to Dunbar’s number, the average amount of relationships one can keep is around 150. This number is given as a certain amount of people one can be familiar with by name, and know that person’s relationships with the rest of his or her friends. This number is arguable, for it also goes up to 230, yet that is the set amount for the number of relationships one can acquire with others. Sophomore Tania Kartolova has 91 friends on Facebook, whom she says she is good friends with or knows very well. “I don’t accept random requests, and I know all of the people on my friend’s list very well,” Kartolova said. “I don’t communicate with all of the people on my friend’s list daily, yet I try.” Dunbar’s number is frequently argued to not being precise. The numbers ranging from 100 to 230 don’t seem to please some who find the range inaccurate. Students have different views on the accuracy of the numbers given by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar. Sophomore Brandon Meral said, “If you actually add everyone you know, you can definitely have more than 250 friends, both on Facebook and in real life.” In a response the large amount of random requests on networking sites such as Facebook, new sites have been developed to limit the amount of adds one gets. According to a recent article in The New York Times, many new social networking sites are beginning to limit the number of friends one can have. Path, which has recently become an app on iPhones, is very similar to Facebook but only allows the user to add 50 friends. By limiting the amount of adds, Path is said to also limit random adds on the network.