Don’t Stress if Your Friends have More Online “Friends” than You Do

[Tennis]

http://psychcentral.com/news/2016/05...do/103621.html

New research should be reassuring as it provides a scientific explanation for why it is close to impossible to have more “friends” or “followers” as compared to those who follow you on social media sites.

Naghmeh Momeni Taramsari, a Ph.D. student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at McGill University, studied the social network environment and explains that it is all due to the inherently hierarchical nature of social media networks. She found that this environment — in the social hierarchy of connections — people mostly either follow up or across; they rarely follow down.

Her study has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

“Most people tend to think that they are better than their friends when it comes to intelligence, memory, popularity, and other personal traits,” says Taramsari.

“However, a recent study by other researchers shows that this perception is false, at least in the context of online social networks.

In reality, our friends really have more friends than we do, on average. Moreover, our friends are more active (post more material), and are more influential (their posts are viewed and passed on more often). This is known as the Generalized Friendship Paradox.”

In the new study, McGill researchers set out to discover to what extent the friendship paradox is present in the online social network Twitter, and how exactly it is reflected in the network structure (as in, who follows whom).

In case you are starting to feel discouraged about it, don’t worry.

After using new methods to measure user influence and the extent to which the Generalized Friendship Paradox exists in social networks researchers concluded that almost all users (up to 90 per cent of us) experience this paradox — even those with relatively high levels of activity and influence.

That’s because people at any level of activity and influence tend to follow others who are more active and influential than themselves, according to Prof. Michael Rabbat, the senior author on the paper.

“Social networks do not simply comprise a few ultra-popular people with tens of millions of followers, followed by the masses, and who themselves only follow a few others,” says Rabbat.

“Rather, Twitter is hierarchical in the following sense: those who have millions of connections mostly follow others with million connections. Those with thousands of connections mostly follow others with thousands or millions of connections.

Those with a few connections follows others with few, thousands, or millions of connections. Apparently, it’s just the way we’re connected.”

Therefore connecting with “popular” friends means that we will be in the minority. Or, put another way, in the end, even online, it’s because we all want to be friends with the popular kids.

I don't buy this. It's a huge problem if most of your friends are online friends. Does not bode well for you.

[caervek]

I don't buy this. It's a huge problem if most of your friends are online friends. Does not bode well for you.

Most of my Facebook friends are cats, how does that bode?

[BuckSparkles]

If somebody has more than 150 friends on any social media, I automatically assume most of those people are fake friends, and that person just likes the attention.

[dd614]

tennisace, you have to be less obvious in your trolling attempts than this. 1/10. Big time shitposting fail.

Infracted - minor spam

[Tennis]

tennisace, you have to be less obvious in your trolling attempts than this. 1/10. Big time shitposting fail.

What's my trolling angle here exactly? I posted a study that I didn't agree with.

[Khaza-R]

http://psychcentral.com/news/2016/05...do/103621.html



I don't buy this. It's a huge problem if most of your friends are online friends. Does not bode well for you.

You're one of the last individuals that people should seek psychological advise from.

[Raetary]

You're one of the last individuals that people should seek psychological advise from.

this.
so much this.

[Khaza-R]

If somebody has more than 150 friends on any social media, I automatically assume most of those people are fake friends, and that person just likes the attention.

Most likely. Most "facebook friends" are just acquaintances not actual friends for many people. If you use the site for networking, there is nothing wrong with that. It can be quite useful at times even.

[Kontinuum]

I don't have friends at all so no worry there.

[Deleted]

You're one of the last individuals that people should seek psychological advise from.

Uh, that was savage.
@Tennisace:
Quality > Quantity. iRL and Online.

[Phookah]

You're one of the last individuals that people should seek psychological advise from.

Truth. (It's advice btw, I know its stupid but that's the 3rd time I've seen that exact mistake today, forgive me xD)
OT: I keep a close circle of personal friends, and pretty much everyone I have online are actual friends or family, not big on adding random people who are friends of a friends friend

[May90]

I don't buy this. It's a huge problem if most of your friends are online friends. Does not bode well for you.

"Huge problem"? Why exactly?

[Tennis]

"Huge problem"? Why exactly?

Obesity is already a major issue. If you don't have many real friends then you could end up dooming yourself to a sedentary lifestyle and being entrenched in a life of loneliness.

[May90]

Obesity is already a major issue. If you don't have many real friends then you could end up dooming yourself to a sedentary lifestyle and being entrenched in a life of loneliness.

This... is a very far-fetched assumption.

[Ornerybear]

people care about how many friends their friends have on social media? I don't think i've ever even looked at how many friends someone has. hell I don't even know how many i have...

[Deleted]

Most likely. Most "facebook friends" are just acquaintances not actual friends for many people. If you use the site for networking, there is nothing wrong with that. It can be quite useful at times even.

Some aren't even that actually. Heck, I sometimes got friend requests from people whom I had never met/known even at a glance simply because I was friends with someone they were friends with on Facebook. I declined them, but I imagine the percent of these people only increases as the number of people you're friends with on FB grows.

Also, I generally use FB as a small news platform myself, I follow things I like and updates from them just appear magically in one place. Sometimes I use it as a messenger too. And pictures of cats.

[Tennis]

You're one of the last individuals that people should seek psychological advise from.

If you're going to take a shot at me then at least use spellcheck. It's "advice" not "advise".

Infracted - minor spam

[Dug]

Obesity is already a major issue. If you don't have many real friends then you could end up dooming yourself to a sedentary lifestyle and being entrenched in a life of loneliness.

I still think you're projecting with your weird obsession with obesity

[Calfredd]

I still think you're projecting with your weird obsession with obesity

Maybe he's secretly obese and is projecting like how some homophobes are actually gay.

[Macaquerie]

I still think you're projecting with your weird obsession with obesity

Yeah, with a comment like that there's no way that he wasn't talking only to himself there...