Facebook says there are only 3.57 degrees of separation

However, the research does not reflect the world’s total population, which was estimated by to stand at 7.3 billion in July 2015 by the UN. So Donald Trump and Barack Obama are each a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of yours.

Facebook is using Friends Day to celebrate its 12th birthday and shatter Frigyes Karinthy’s “Six Degree of Separation” concept. If you visit the page here, you can see how connected you are compared to everyone else on the planet (or at least the 1.6 billion people on Facebook).

Most of the tweets had to do with Facebook’s intrusive nature – from privacy concerns, to cyber stalking their friends’ every moves – while others pointed out how the social network has changed how we interact socially.

Facebook’s Data Science team said that in 2016 people’s average “degrees of separation” number is 3.57. The vast majority of people have between 2.9 and 4.2 degrees. In this case, people with enough internet access, free time, and the sheer interest of owning a Facebook account. For example, I’m 3.41 degrees of separation from Zuckerberg and 2.92 degrees from COO Sheryl Sandberg. This means you could be connected to even the most distant stranger, hunched over a computer in some far corner of the world, by fewer than four people.

A full description of how the result was reached is available on the website.

A similar study carried out in 2011 by Facebook, Cornell University and The University of Milan found the average instances of interconnectedness between users was 3.74.