Image Courtesy of Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha (the computational knowledge engine) recently published an interesting study on demos, interests and behavior of Facebook users, particularly around friendship and relationship patterns.
The key findings show:
- The median Facebook user has 342 friends
- Most users have friends around their own age, likely a reflection of aged-based classes in school or college
- Teenage boys have more friends than teenage girls, but this difference dwindles once users hit their early 20s
- Facebook users tend to have 3-4 “clusters” of friends with up to 100 people in each cluster
- Relationships on Facebook very closely match the patterns seen in United States census data, with most people marrying in their mid-20s. “The fraction of people “in a relationship” peaks around age 24, and there’s a small “engaged” peak around 27. The fraction of people who report themselves as married continues to increase roughly linearly with age, gaining about 5% between age 40 and age 60—while the fraction of people who report themselves as single continues to increase for women, while decreasing for men.” (Stephen Wolfram)
To read more about the study and it’s findings, click here.