MIT Technology Review mentioned the Friendship Paradox, in which, due to outliers and “the topology of networks,” your friends on average have more friends than you do. The article goes on to suggest that your friends probably are more wealthy and happy, too.
I was curious to see how my Facebook friends’ friend counts measured up. My Facebook friends average 434 friends.1My data isn’t perfect, because 24 of my friends prevent me from seeing their entire friend list; I can only see mutual friends. Thus I have no idea how many Facebook friends those friends have. Only 67% of my FB friends have less than that many friends, so the article could be false for 33% of my FB friends (including me).
This also explains my two previous posts.
- 1My data isn’t perfect, because 24 of my friends prevent me from seeing their entire friend list; I can only see mutual friends. Thus I have no idea how many Facebook friends those friends have.