While the social media world features a giant scoreboard of how connected everyone in the Western world is at any given moment, between followers, likes, and the utter nonsense of Klout, it seems like most people have two people they really consider friends, if they have any at all.

According to Facebook the average user has 130 friends, but many of these are chance acquaintances or people they will never meet in real life.

But according to Matthew Brashears from Cornell University, although this shrinking social network 'makes us potentially more vulnerable, we’re not as socially isolated as scholars had feared'...

When asked to list the names of people they had discussed 'important matters' with over the previous six months, about 48 per cent of participants listed one name, 18 per cent listed two, and roughly 29 per cent listed more than two names for these close friends.

On average, participants had 2.03 confidantes. And just over four per cent of participants didn't list any names.

Female participants and those who were educated were the least likely to report no names on their confidante list.