Facebook users average 3.74 degrees of separation

There are on average 3.74 degrees of separation between any one Facebook user and another, a study suggests.

The number of degrees represents the number of people in a friendship chain, excluding the people at either end.

Or, as the authors put it: When considering another person in the world, a friend of your friend knows a friend of their friend.

The study was carried out in May and involved all of the social network’s active members.

Facebook defines a user as active if they have logged on at least once over the past 28 days