Size isn’t everything: As Facebook’s shares shrink the future of social networking looks altogether more intimate

They used to say you can count the number of real friends you have on one hand. Then Facebook came along and the race to have as many online pals as possible began.

In the past few years, networks such as Facebook and Twitter have encouraged us to poke or follow virtual strangers while expanding our social circles by connecting with everyone we know – and frequently with those we don't.

But now it seems we've come full circle, with many new social experiences and apps springing up to narrow down our connections and in many cases allow us to only engage with one other person.

They include the likes of Path, which limits members to 150 friends and Google+, which enables users to easily create separate groups of Circles to share different information with.

Social apps Cupple and Pair are specifically designed for two people in a relationship to build memories together by sharing photos, videos and comments in private. Interestingly, these only exist as smartphone apps for pure mobile use.

Two more social networks, FamilyLeaf and Storytree, are gaining traction and popularity in America too, with families who want to be able to connect to relatives without sharing their lives bearing their souls and opening their hearts to people who they may have never met in person.

Social media expert Ilana Fox, head of social engagement for shopping network Shopcade, said: "I think smaller social networks like Path are the future of online interaction. There are so many people on networks such as Facebook and Twitter that there is too much noise.

"People are finding that as their personal networks grow it is harder to see the messages that matter most to them - the ones from their most important friends and loved ones.

"We want to keep a presence on the bigger networks like Facebook - we can use it as our vital address book, or the place where we update everyone on key moments in our lives on Timeline. But we don't want to share everything with everyone, and that's where the smaller networks come in."

[Related Article: Twitter tops 10 million UK users]

Just a few days after Facebook launched on the stock market with a $104bn valuation, Ilana added: "Facebook is a monster - people are expected to add everyone they know to their profile, and the settings make it difficult to create different groups of people. Additionally, we're encouraged to like brands - who bombard us with marketing messages - and link our listening and viewing habits with frictionless sharing.

"Facebook is becoming our huge personal hub of everything going on in our lives but this makes sharing the more personal moments in our lives more difficult and when we share something important within this environment, it feels insincere."

But Milo Yiannopoulos, editor-in-chief of technology journal The Kernel disagrees. He believes bringing a social network into the heart of a close one-to-one relationship may backfire.

He said: "Twitter and Facebook are getting us addicted to technology and divorced from each other like never before. It was inevitable that the limits of social networks would have been brought down with the likes of Path and Pair.

"But what these networks do is dangerous: they replace genuine human interaction with an iPhone app, introducing the same ego-driven noise that drowns out meaningful communication on Twitter and Facebook to those relationships that actually matter.

"My worry is that couples using software like Pair will end up further apart, not closer together."

Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University is an expert in cyberpsychology. He believes large connected social networks are here to stay but admits he can see the psychological attraction of more intimate ones.

He explained: "There is a culture of information overload now. My own personal experience with my kids is they have hundreds of friends on Facebook but no more than 10 were real friends. My guess is that is how a lot of people do it.

"These new services are not yet a trend but they go against the tide and will attract those who feel they want to be in touch with the people who are most important to them.

"The attraction of gravitating towards a minimum number of people helps us to cope with the bombardment and day-to-day management of information. It also offers an air of exclusivity, which borders on snobbish. That exclusive feeling will be very attractive to some.

"But many people will never want to go back from the large networks we have today because as human beings we want to keep up with Jones' and are always having competitions with others even if we don't know we are doing it. Having the most friends is a good way of keeping that kind of score as its numerical."

He added: "There is a dilemma though of whether wanting to make yourself feel popular to raise your self-esteem can be set against coping with that wealth of information. My daughter's phone sometimes pings every 30 seconds for hours each evening."

And with new networks and apps constantly being launched into the social space, Chris Phin, editor of Tap! magazine, says: "Our brains have changed little from those of primitive man, and we simply can't maintain stable relationships with more than a handful of people. The anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorises that the maximum number of people we can truly interact with is around 150.

"I think lots of us are becoming fatigued with trying to follow, process and engage with massive groups of people.

"But there's nothing stopping you being socially promiscuous and using Twitter, then LinkedIn for professional networking, and an app such as Path to share private thoughts with a very select group of trusted friends; match the platform to the purpose.

"Your Twitter followers might not care 'what you had for lunch', but your mum or your boyfriend might."

He added: "The idea of an app for husband and wife, say, might seem superfluous – what’s wrong with SMS, email, DMs or whatever? – but it’s actually rather clever. Not only does it mean that banalities like arranging where to meet for lunch are taken away from a public feed, there is some good use of mobile tech as well, tracking places you’ve been together, places you want to go, sharing photos and more.

"In the short term, though, people could and should familiarise themselves with how to create onion-skin layers of people with whom they can share particular updates, photos and more on the networks they use now; there are existing tools for making broadcast social networks more intimate."

However, Professor Griffiths believes the key to ensuring smaller social networks gain traction could be the displacement that happens within our lives as we grow older.
 
He said: "I stopped being a workaholic once my first child was born. Something had to give. Today for my kids, they don't have time to watch TV, instead they are in front of different screens for what some would say is a disproportionate amount of time.

"Day-to-day social networking time disappears with other calls on your life such has having children. The irony is when I try and get quality time with mine, they are on social networks!"