← The Arithmetic of a Feed · Lesson 2 of 3
The friendship paradox
On average, your friends have more friends than you do. The sociologist Scott Feld explained why in 1991: well-connected people appear in many friend lists, so they are counted again and again when you look at "friends".
It is not a flaw in you. It is a sampling effect: anything you meet through other people over-represents the most connected people.
In a small club one person is friends with all nine others, and the nine are friends only with that person. What is the average number of friends a member’s friends have?
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