Do you ever get the feeling that the people you follow on social media are more popular and active than you are?

Unfortunately, this is probably not your imagination. Due to a strange social phenomenon, chances are that you’re right. Those you follow on Twitter likely have a larger following than you do, as research recently published in the journals show.

The finding is evidence of a fascinating, broader phenomenon that sociologists call “the friendship paradox.” The basic idea is that people are likely to have fewer friends than their friends do, on average.

Strange as that may seem, the principle is well-established, and it has wide ranging effects. It’s the reason why the people you see in the gym seem to be more in shape than you are and why your sexual partners seem to be more experienced than you are. It’s why people experience both national parks and college classes as more crowded than they actually are on average.

How can this be true? Let’s look at the original example, the idea that your friends are likely, on average, to have more friends than you do.

It sounds strange, but the principle actually has an intuitive explanation. People who have more friends are more likely to be among your friends than people who have fewer friends.

The problem is that, by surveying your friends, you’ve created what statisticians called a “biased sample.” People with few friends are less likely to be among your friends than they are among the general population.

To put it another way, the odds of being friends with someone who has more friends are greater than the odds of being friends with someone who has fewer friends. You can see how this might work out mathematically in the diagram below:

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http://www.newstrafficker.com/2016/05/here-are-mathematical-reasons-why-youre.html

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Well u can see my sig. to help u grow ur acc

So if your friends are more popular than you,then you are more popular than your friends,and the cycle never ends..its a paradoxical statement

Really ( straight face)

I actually follow people on instagram I can learn from, and also comedians and all of them have a lot of friends, but in reality my close friends don't have so many friends so I don't know how this works.