Why your friends have more friends than you: the friendship paradox
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Don’t believe it? Consider this: the average Facebook user has 245 friends, but the average friend on Facebook has 359 friends, according to a 2011 Pew survey.
But how can that be? It definitely seems weird, and that’s why this phenomenon is known as “friendship paradox,” described in a 1991 paper by Scott L. Feld amusingly titled “Why Your Friends Have More Friends Than You Do.”
It turns out the paradox is not so mysterious, however, when you take a closer look at the math. Below I will give an example of the friendship paradox and then go through the math of why it happens.
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