Once a group reaches a certain size, each participant starts to feel anonymous again, and the person they’re following — who once seemed proximal, like a friend — now seems larger than life and remote.

[…]

Maybe we should be designing tools that reward obscurity — that encourage us to remain in the shadows. Or what if they warned us when our social circles became unsustainably large? Sure, we’d be connected with fewer people, but we’d be communicating with them, and not just talking at them.

I think my lunchtime reading is going to be on the theme of why are so many people obsessed with celebrity? The model of having small but meaningful social groups is far more appealing to me, but it seems that there is something in human nature that makes us all care greatly about the Ashton Kutcher’s and Oprah’s of the world.