The Friendship Paradox | This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
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This video covers what the friendship paradox is, why it occurs, and what its applications are.
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I just saw “This is in your recommended because...” and I couldn’t resist the temptation to click.
same
same
Me too
“Because It’s related to the spread of diseases” O.O
Same
Well, Alice still has 1 more friend than 90% of the comment section
lol
This comment was very humorous😂😂😂
LMFAO
I have -1 Friend, aka an ex-friend.
You’re in the comment section
Ignore him Alice, he is just trying to make you feel bad.
😂😂😂😂😂
I want to be your friend, diego
@@shuumo453 what bout me bro wassup
alice in 1-derland
calling alice by "he" ?
I was so confused when part of the title was "This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases" on a video that was made NINE months ago. But then I realized Zach probably changed the title recently and did some TH-cam algorithm stuff. that's so clever!
F*ck yea
Nah, he’s a time travellor
Yeah it took me a minute to conclude the same, during which I was all, "whoah, u-tube is now telling users why it's recommending videos... oh, by adding it to the title, cool!"
But he did talk about spreading of diseases
@@singularityraptor4022 yeah haha he literally talked about a study that concluded more popular people are super-spreaders because of their higher amount of connections.
‘One REALLY popular person’
Bob: *Has THrEEEEeeEe friends*
Aka, the entire world
Rip
At least he has friends
Are you saying I'm not popular?
@@nrggvrn5576 woosh
"This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases"
Are you Nostradamus, or did you change the title recently?
😂
Nostradamus...
Anonymous71475 he change the title with an TH-cam API for free
It didn't take nostradamus to see a massive viral pandemic as a realistic possibility.
@@slash196 *Cof cof* Bubonic plague *cof cof*
Bold of you to assume I have friends.
On the positive note you can't get flu if you have no friends.
@@homelessbulletballinventor3074 you are more likely to get, because you have bad immune system.
Or even want any.
When you have no friends you save more money cause you're less likely to go out to eat.
Lol
Jokes on you. I searched for that exact title
I'm like Bob. not because I'm the most popular, but because I only have 3 friends
Lol
3 more than me
ONLY?! that's a lot!
Right hand, tissue box, and Google
that's above the average tho
Me thinking "what friends?"
This guy at the start of the video "What friends?"
Me: *surprised pikachu face*
The real reason we are less popular is because we watch math videos on youtube rather than go out :)
YOU, YOU SIR. ARE A GENIUS!!
@Nanio Then youre a statistical sidenote
I still dont understand :(
Is this a personal attack or something
Yeah, people on yt r only here bc we lonely (a lot of ppl not all) like MEEEE
I love how the title includes "This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases" but then next up in autoplay is "This is how easy it is to manipulate public perception"
If you have no friends both averages are 0 so that's the way to go.
Actually your score is 0 but your friends average score is 0÷0 which is undefined.
Also works in a closed cult as everyone is only allowed to be friends with cult members
Wanna join?
@@elliottsampson1454 undetermined
No, your friends average number of friends would be infinity making you less popular than your non-existent friends.
Q only if everyone is friends with everyone
Be honest, most of us just came to find a reason for our unpopularity
Nice Guy
Yep and im out after 2 mins. Math too hard. Fuck it.
how tf u know that!?😂
I came here because I thought this doesn't add up. Like what if my popular friends watch this video?hmmm
Ah, well the reason is simple. Either one of these:
1. introvert or social anxiety
2. unattractive
3. bad personality
Go and better yourself in one of those.
@@lagroadMaTh ToO HaRd
Honestly though friendships are subjective (i.e. I may say I have 3 friends but you would say I have 7, etc) depending on what you consider as a friend. so that adds to the problem
I agree. Like someone can say they have over 100 friends, but in reality they're just counting it on facebook or twitter, never actually meeting them or rarely actually spending time with them. While another criteria is acquaintance vs friend, you know them but how much are you willing to open up to them etc. This video is very click baity and just makes people more anxious. There will always be someone who has more friends, but you should value the ones you have and the ones you will meet in the future.
Yep
My definition of a friend is just like a sexual relationship but minus the sexual
Surely only you decide who your friends are, even if that relationship isn't reciprocal?
Yes, I thought my boyfriend was popular. He literally knows anyone in the hood. But then he said he only had 3 friends. And I saw that he rarely really met up with someone. He just went on the streets and did things with groups of 15 people. He isn't the type of someone running after groups, he really is a big deal in the group, but he has no one to reeeeally talk to when he has sad days. Yeah okay, thats a boy thing.
Me for example, I felt like I have less friends but that was maybe not the case because I had a handful of people I can run to when I feel the most down.
The trick is to become friends with your friends friend, that way u can be the most popular. Have your friends introduce you, them you can meet new people.
Finally! A mathematical answer to why I have no friends!
*actually* there's not.
@@theboyntonbuddies 😂😂😂
I guess memes came into play
Inferno Captures r/whooshhhhh
Friend is harder than math +_+
I’m just going to react to the title and be on my way:
If my friends are more popular than me, wouldn’t that mean that I’m more popular than my friends from their perspective?
what
Yeah. You're like the unsuspecting fisherman that reels in good valuable fish everyday 😈
I was thinking that too lol
Exactly what I was thinking
Yep, thats what I thought when i read this... tbh i dont rly think this works lmao
I am popular in my friend circle because
I am the only one in that cycle.
Hit me in the feels man.
But how can only one person be a circle?
@@jackjason3583 ○
@@jackjason3583 me, myself and I
Classic Life oh yeah makes sense
Me: Oh hey, a video about friends and math, cool
Zach Star: ...infectious diseases-
I guess it really is impossible to escape the coronavirus pandemic
Yup
This was uploaded beforehand
Anyone else doesn’t know exactly how many friends they have? There’s always that one guy that you forgot then remember used to be your best friend 10 years ago. Then you remember all the good shit you did together and became friends again.
This is the first recommended video, that actually tried to explain why it is recommended. Nice
Is it stupid to just realise Alice bob carol and David are named because they’re in the order of the alphabet?
*I realised this at the end*
It's a common thing amongst exam papers I noticed a few years ago
its the names we use when we need to use names in science stuff😂 like textbooks
They only went up to David, because otherwise, they'd have to include Eve, and Eve has a contentious history with Alice regarding Bob way back when they took cryptography classes together.
Every science paper using models like this use Alice and Bob. The most common would be if you explain how an encryption method, like RSA, works.
OHHHH
Behold. The only known video that actually explains why it's in the recommendations.
Think about the statement, "50% of marriages end in divorce". Is that a good measure of how likely a person will be divorced? People who get divorced many times in their lifetimes will be counted more often than those who marry once and never divorce.
Treue Eckhardt oof once in algebra 2 we were talking about sampling and stuff
There was a test, and one of the questions was this movie renting store owner asking customers how many times they rent movies in a month. I said this sample was biased because the people who rented more were more likely to get chosen for the survey
I got marked wrong lol
@@someperson5137 I teach Algebra II. You have to understand that many times teachers (or other graders) only take a very short time to grade each question on a test. Teachers make mistakes too! I think that you are probably right though. Unless a store is really careful in its sampling method, if a person rents a lot of videos, then that person would more likely be chosen for the survey.
When was this class? I don't think they have stores where you can rent videos any more, do they?
Treue Eckhardt this was back in March or something. It was just a problem, so who knows where it came from lol. I talked to my teacher and she still said it was unbiased. Oh well, it’s fine. 😂
@J I used to teach math and I agree with you; which is why math class is often disconnected with the outside world, often concerned with procedural knowledge and not critical thinking.
Sounds like the sampling method wouldn't be random, so it would carry bias any day.
Yeah, but the vast majority of people are not Ross from Friends. So even accounting for those who inflate the numbers , you still have 40 % chance of getting divorced in your first marriage.
“let’s say you have five friends”
that’s five more than what I have rn and I’ll take it lmfao
"Imagine the several people sitting at home not working out"
Shows video of himself 😂
Average number of friends a person has on Facebook: 245
Number of friends I have on Facebook: 249
Average.
My weight. Average. My height. Average. My body fat. Average. My income. Below average... Jesus, could the universe give me average pay too?
I just checked, and I literally have 252 friends on Facebook lol I could definitely purge quite a few as we've not spoken in years. So, they're not really friends
I have -10 friends on fb
now i want to see your actual friend count(facebook friends aren't really friends, because biology)
@@universenerdd I've actually hung out with most of them. Minus the one or two that don't live in the country.
Am I the only one here who doesn’t have Facebook?
The annoying thing is that I was friends with my friends BEFORE they all became popular and BEFORE most of them ditched me.
We've been left out man
@@cacklegag3284 yeah
MHM MOOD YES ME TOO BISH
**breaks down crying**
Yepp
Auch that felt oersonally
I wouldn't even call my friends truly friends.
I mean, out of all of their relationships, I am one of the lowest priorities.
True
@Kaleela Edwards something a popular person would say lol
Dude I feel you
same tho
Same
I like that somebody (even if financially incentivised as MajorPrep) finally promotes Coursera instead of Brilliant or Skillshare, keep up the good work :D
Imagine having no friends and still being less popular than them.
😂😂😂😂
This is a very important concept that everyone should learn in school. Basically, the 'paradox' (more generally selection bias) shows why evidence based on personal experience seldom reflect the reality. In fact, if we ask random person (you!) how common something is, they on average will overestimate the frequency of it, and in the case of rare events (like winning in a lottery) very badly.
As an example, let me ask how likely it is that vaccination causes major side effect. Your sample will consist of yourself, people who you know, who you have met, and who you have heard or read of. The sample size is very small to capture rare evenets, so even if a single person you know have had major side effects, it will already yield an overestimate. And if you know no-one with side efdects, you still most likely have heard of people having side effects (thanks internet), which still yields an overestimate. If we wurther take human psychology into account (exceptional/bad events are more memorable and given more weight than nonexistent/common/good ones), this bias only gets amplified.
Really well put and my next video is basically dedicated to this. I think it's actually a really important concept more people need to realize.
goddamn fucking ANTI-VAXXERS
"Popular people tend to get choosen more often and spread the disease"
Me: helth
Your friends can't be more popular than you if you don't have friends in the first place.
*insert roll safe meme*
If you're friends with nobody, and a lot of other people are friends with nobody too, then nobody is more popular than you.
Exomancer I see what you did there 😏
Or if you intentionally befriend people that society decides to deem losers.
This is an interesting paradox that I’ll definitely care more about once I figure out the meaning of this word “friend”
3 unexplainable things:
1.what happened before the big bang
2.the Bermuda triangle
3.youtubes recommendations
To address #1: when a woman singularity and a man singularity love each other very much...
In all seriousness, consciousness itself is the only thing I can see as possibly underlying the Big Bang - I'd say "predating," but in my view, that would absolutely be the wrong term, though I'm yet to encounter a term that _would_ suffice when it comes to the aspect of time.
@@p.as.in.pterodactyl1024 ok
because it relates to a disease
@@p.as.in.pterodactyl1024 shhh 0-0
co ri, quantumfracture intensifies
"Averaging a bunch of averages" sounds so satisfying to the ear... IDK why tho
Before watching the video: If someone has few Facebook friends then you are unlikely to be one of them, but if they have tons of Facebook friends than you are much more likely to be one of them. So a decent percentage of your friends list is going to be made of power-users with tons of friends which will push the average up.
Hey I was right! This reminded me of something at work a couple months back. I work at a gas station and one of the regular customers remarked that every time they come in it's always packed, and she wondered how we kept up with it all day. I told her that actually we only get a couple of big rushes a day and usually there's only a handful of customers in the store at any one time. But since the very thing that makes large rushes of people stand out is the fact that there are a lot of people, those are the times when any individual person is most likely to enter the store. She looked at me and I could just see the wheels turning in her head and after a couple seconds her eyes lit up and she said "Oh wow I never thought of it that way but that makes so much sense". And ever since then she's generally shown up about twenty minutes later than she used to, which is right around the time most of the big rush is gone.
I love how you explained this simple yet fascinating concept, blew my mind.
Counterpoint: I have 0 friends.
Lol
*that's how mafia works*
He already made that joke in the first 10 seconds of the video
You're a sad person
yumboom True. I made the joke when I saw the title, I guess everybody did the same thing..... and got more likes Oo
Three lies I found in *only* the title:
1. It matters
2. My friends are way more famous than me
3. *I have friends*
Regular clickbaiter: GONE WRONG GONE SEXUAL
Zach star: Explaining exactly why was this recommended and why you would watch it. Well played, sir.
I love when scientific videos create correlations between math/physics and real life phenomenons
To everyone saying "3 friends is popular?", you're missing that in this case "3" is "100%" of the available friends, which then makes it more substantial...
But... Seriously, get some sleep!
Me: *What frien-*
MajorPrep: I'm sorry did I assume?
Me: oH gOd hE knOwS
Guys make sure you are distancing in the comments.
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ok
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I'm doing it
Stop liking your own comments
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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ,
I did it
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TH-cam: demonetize youtubers for saying coronavirus
Also TH-cam: recommends videos that talk about spreading of diseases
This honestly solves a lot of social complexity. It also assures you that your goals are impossible.Like let’s say you want to have lots of friends. But then all of your friends will still have more friends than you combined. So basically as you get better, the bar gets higher and you will never reach it.
I thought this was going to be a life coaching type of video.😅
Half the People in the comments: I have no friends.
The other half: It is in my recommendations :O
And then there's you
"If you're like me, you're like, 'wait, what friends'"
He actually knows why this is in my recommendation
I don't have friends, I just know people. That's it.
POV: this was actually in your recommended and you couldn't resist clicking that precognitive title.
Does this work with enemies too?
Lol
If it's mutual then yeah it would. it also works with sex partners (people you've slept with have slept with more people).
MajorPrep that is interesting. Has a broad spectrum of application
@@zachstar my score is negative
"The Enemy Paradox | Why you think your enemies are less popular than you (and why that matters)"
My Man’s out here telling us what we need a year before we know we need it
If your friends have more friends than you, then if you look from your friends perspective he has more friends than his friends.
Basically this doesnt make sense.
His friends are likely to be unpopular in average because he has so much of them. And this friends of him will probably just have one friend like Alice.
No, since the friend is very popular, he will likely have popular friends too, even if he has unpopular ones, he has so many that it will probably outweigh his score
Absolutely, the phrasing "most of your friends are more popular than you" isn't always true, as stated in the video 15:30. The correct way is that friends of people are more popular than people. Its about comparing the average answer to these two questions asked to every person in the group:
-How many friends do you have?
-List the number of friends every friend of yours have.
For the second question, you aggregate all the lists in one list, and average that.
You can see the problem with this, someone with 10 friends will be listed10 times, and someone with 1 friend will be listed 1 time. Thus, the average get skewed.
This is actually in my recommendeds because I recently got really involved in your channel, but that's good to know.
Bold of you to assume this is in my recommendation
Thank you for changing the title, I wish other content creators were this descriptive. Subscribing for sure.
This youtube algorithm has a funny sense of humor
Wow. Interesting. And a positive message in the video. That you dont have to compare yourself to others, because you compare yourself often to a group that doesnt represent the average.
And very claer explained.
1:13 is this a love triangle with one extra chick
In reality Bob and Carol THINK they are fighting over Bob and that he likes both if them equally but in reality he is cheering on both(?) of them with Alice
I thought of this as David and carol fucking HATE Alice and bob just don’t give af.
To the people that don't have friends in this comment section:
I'll be your friend
Thx dude, I needed that
do you know how many people are in this comment section?
@@joshykaizo me being 4th
How can you be my friend our connection is inexistent
Thx
It seems this is an unofficial party of people with NO friends. Well, I can be your friend, at least we have one thing in common ;)
Yes.
But then I would have to kick you a out of the party, as it is for only friendless people
@@faustoflores3334 i do that on PlayStation
0:29
Average person: 245 friends
Me: how the f-
I've already seen this, but omg, it's very different after COVID hit
Just seeing it now and ya tell me about it..the virus pandemic has escalated the loneliness pandemic and its very sad
So I wasn't the only one getting the feeling of deja vu
*Bold of you to assume that I don’t have a superiority complex-*
Me: *read the title*
.
.
H O W D O Y O U K N O W
You know, when I saw "This is in your recommended because", I couldn't resist the temptation to click this video lol!😂
Who else clicked becuz of that lol.
Damn, now I can't comment with "why is this in my recommended?"
This is in my recommended because of a disease but Only because I’ve been binge watching this channel
Me: *read title*, huh.. did i finally found a video so relatable with my life?
This channel has fast become one of the very best channels in the entire TH-cam content-wise.
Paradox:
How can you be there average friend of a person without being an average person?
I like how the title got changed over a year ago, but it still worked to get me to watch the video
Here is another example of sampling bias.
A survey was taken during WWII of bomber crews asking them what parts of their planes they thought were hit most and needed to be up armoured. These guys selected oddly unimportant parts like wingtips and such.
It turned out the wrong sample was picked so the wrong people were being asked, since only survivors of failed attacks were the only crew left to take this survey. Most crewmembers on planes that had a gas tank or pilot hit didn't manage to return to base to take their survey.
Excellent video. Very interesting, informative, and worthwhile video. Many thanks for the links to relevant information.
I called it, he's a fucking time traveler
TLDR you're more likely to be friends with someone who has a lot of friends then a recluse who has few friends, but if you factor in personality this at first logical analysis can be very inaccurate to your life
my 3 friends are i, me and myself.
They have weird names
You forgot "my hand"
@@0w0Demonic And "my other hand"
@@omniscientomnipresent5500 yes i agree
don't read my profile pic we're still talking about "friends" Right? 😊
This video was recommended to me because I'm binging your videos
6:27
So what I take away from this is that the sooner you get sick, the more popular you are. Can someone sneeze on me?
I really like how you are doing videos that are interesting (mathematics ;D) and helpful our mental and physical health. These videos are fun to watch - thank you.
How to slow the spread of the pandemic:
*_Neutralize extroverts_*
I've already seen this video, but now that the title changed, I couldn't resist the temptation.
Actually, it's in my recommendations because it's related to maths and that's the kind of stuff I watch on TH-cam
ok you got me with the title, guess I'm here now
"The average person has 245 friends in Facebook"
I don't even have 100 friends on Facebook and most of them are family or simply coworkers or old classmates, only 2 of those people I can actually consider friends and both of them actually have more friends than I do.
I gonna flex that I dont even use Facebook.
I have like 380 and most of them I don't even know
@@EmyN Well, looking at the picture you have here, I assume most of the friend requests were sent to you and you didn't sent almost any of them.
Starfire Storm Thanks, that's kind! But my point is Facebook friends don't mean shit, really
I'm in a similar situation 😂
It's also in my reccomend because of that dope ass comment in the title XD well done!
“Because it relates to the spread of diseases”
Rona: 👁👄👁
sounds horrible to think they targeted popular people to eliminate.
I don't have friends, just work colleagues. Life is simple and less complicated, i like it.
Yesss, who needs "friends"
Are you seriously drinking Kahlua with popcorn? Good gods, man....
The title of this video aged really well.
Love your channel! I hope to see a video where you tell us a little more about you and about your personal life. Some of us ladies would love to know about you 😊. Nonetheless, thank you for the quality information!
Thanks for changing the title
The more popular you are, the more times you are counted as a friend, so the weighting of your contribution to the average is higher if you are popular. The inverses is true, with someone being friend with one or two people only being counted once or twice.
(1+2+3+...+n)/n (average of a selection of people with different numbers of friends) Will be less than: (1+4+9+...+n^2)/(1+2+3+...+n) A system where each member is weighted by their own score, but the overall weighting is still 1 in total
I thought this video was gonna make me feel bad about myself but it made me feel a bit better, especially when you mentioned the thing about comparing yourself to others at the gym :’)
Alright, now shout out all the names of your friends!
Me:-