Group size limitations

Recently I noticed a new research paper about the number 4. This is (approximately) the maximum number of people the human brain can manage in a real-life conversation: Something to talk about: are conversation sizes constrained by mental modeling abilities?
(paywalled)

There's a commentary on the research findings here: What Is the Right Size for a Group Conversation?

Also in the research literature, a natural group size of up to 12 (approximately) has been described for supportive or sympathy groups.

The number 150 was made famous by Professor of Evolutionary Psychology Robin Dunbar as (very approximately) the maximum number of people in a cohesive community. It became known as Dunbar's Number.

These group size limitations are all thought to be related to cognitive limitations in human brains. For a public article that goes into more detail, see: Social Network Size in Humans

At 7 Cups we don't seem to have tried to reflect these real-world group sizes in the design of our software.

For example, at 7 Cups people often experience difficulties in chatrooms, but we haven't tried providing a way for groups to break into 4-way conversations the way they would if the same people were in a real room.

Nor have we provided a way for 1-to-1 chats to expand to three or four people. As far as I know, even our therapists can't provide couple counselling or family therapy at 7 Cups.

We don't provide any special infrastructure for support groups of up to 12 people, even though this very approximately matches the maximum number of people who respond to a checkin thread. (In a sample of 20 checkins from last week that I looked at, only two had responses from more than 12 people, and the average was 6.)

We don't have an easy way to subdivide communities when they grow far beyond 150 active members.

Perhaps more awareness of this research into the way people communicate and bond socially in the real world could help 7 Cups to be more innovative and effective in our online world.