← Paradoxes & riddles
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The Friendship Paradox
why your friends have more friends than you
In almost any friendship network, the average person has fewer friends than their friends have, on average. Take 4 people: Ana has 3 friends: Ben, Cal and Dee, who each have only 1 friend, Ana. On average each person has 1.5 friends, but a person's friends have 2.5 friends on average.
Source: A classic puzzle, retold by INFINITE SUM and fact-checked against our curated notes
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