Our tiny brains are reaching social saturation point. Any heavy email receiver, Twitter user or RSS subscriber will tell you that there comes a point whereby the flow of inbound information is more than we can handle. The result is a flood which can often only be stemmed by giving up and hitting that reset button.

200 inputs is my approximate upper limit. Any more and I struggle to keep up, and eventually have to admit information bankruptcy. I can handle a few more on Twitter, a few fewer on RSS subscriptions, about that number on Facebook. This ballpark figure isn’t particularly surprising, as anyone who’s read The Tipping Point or read about Dunbar’s number will tell you, but I’m interested less in the theory as the consequences of overconsumption.

An elegant social dance is being performed across the web, as people realise they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, and decide to cut back. The resultant social politics are fascinating. Is unfollowing someone on Twitter a meaningful act of disapproval? At what level of ‘busy’ is it ok to ignore a friend’s forwarded email? Can a friendship survive a Facebook defriending?

Mostly these are rhetorical questions, or at least ones where the answers are so personal it’s hard to give a definitive judgement. Whatever the answers, this phenomenon is occurring so regularly I’m amazed we don’t seem to have a name for it yet. So what the hell, I’ll try: “social topiary”.