The Friendship Paradox | This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases 

I just saw “This is in your recommended because...” and I couldn’t resist the temptation to click.

Bold of you to assume I have friends.

Well, Alice still has 1 more friend than 90% of the comment section

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 RU-vid algorithm stuff. that's so clever!

Ignore him Alice, he is just trying to make you feel bad.

‘One REALLY popular person’ Bob: *Has THrEEEEeeEe friends*

"This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases" Are you Nostradamus, or did you change the title recently?

Jokes on you. I searched for that exact title

If you have no friends both averages are 0 so that's the way to go.

I'm like Bob. not because I'm the most popular, but because I only have 3 friends

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"

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 :)

I am popular in my friend circle because I am the only one in that cycle.

Be honest, most of us just came to find a reason for our unpopularity

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.

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

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*

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?

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?

Finally! A mathematical answer to why I have no friends!

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.

I wouldn't even call my friends truly friends. I mean, out of all of their relationships, I am one of the lowest priorities.

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

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.

"Imagine the several people sitting at home not working out" Shows video of himself 😂

“let’s say you have five friends” that’s five more than what I have rn and I’ll take it lmfao

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!

The annoying thing is that I was friends with my friends BEFORE they all became popular and BEFORE most of them ditched me.

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.

This is the first recommended video, that actually tried to explain why it is recommended. Nice

Guys make sure you are distancing in the comments. .

Does this work with enemies too?

"Popular people tend to get choosen more often and spread the disease" Me: helth

Behold. The only known video that actually explains why it's in the recommendations.

Imagine having no friends and still being less popular than them.

Your friends can't be more popular than you if you don't have friends in the first place. *insert roll safe meme*

This is an interesting paradox that I’ll definitely care more about once I figure out the meaning of this word “friend”

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.😅

I like that somebody (even if financially incentivised as MajorPrep) finally promotes Coursera instead of Brilliant or Skillshare, keep up the good work :D

3 unexplainable things: 1.what happened before the big bang 2.the Bermuda triangle 3.youtubes recommendations

0:29 Average person: 245 friends Me: how the f-

1:13 is this a love triangle with one extra chick

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 don't have friends, I just know people. That's it.

He actually knows why this is in my recommendation

Counterpoint: I have 0 friends.

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've already seen this, but omg, it's very different after COVID hit

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.

RU-vid: demonetize youtubers for saying coronavirus Also RU-vid: recommends videos that talk about spreading of diseases

I love how you explained this simple yet fascinating concept, blew my mind.

Half the People in the comments: I have no friends. The other half: It is in my recommendations :O

Me: *What frien-* MajorPrep: I'm sorry did I assume? Me: oH gOd hE knOwS

"If you're like me, you're like, 'wait, what friends'"

Damn, now I can't comment with "why is this in my recommended?"

Bold of you to assume this is in my recommendation

my 3 friends are i, me and myself.

I love when scientific videos create correlations between math/physics and real life phenomenons

*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

This youtube algorithm has a funny sense of humor

How did I end up watching Math on RU-vid, its summer jesus 🤦🏻‍♂️

To the people that don't have friends in this comment section: I'll be your friend

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 ;)

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!

My Man’s out here telling us what we need a year before we know we need it

How to slow the spread of the pandemic: *_Neutralize extroverts_*

I have been waiting for a new video from Major Prep and boy have I been lucky this day!

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.

thanks for clearing that up at the end, i didn't really think a lot about this, but i fell for that as well

Thank you for changing the title, I wish other content creators were this descriptive. Subscribing for sure.

Paradox: How can you be there average friend of a person without being an average person?

Me: *read title*, huh.. did i finally found a video so relatable with my life?

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.

POV: this was actually in your recommended and you couldn't resist clicking that precognitive title.

Alright, now shout out all the names of your friends! Me:-

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.

This is actually in my recommendeds because I recently got really involved in your channel, but that's good to know.

This channel has fast become one of the very best channels in the entire RU-vid content-wise.

I was waiting for you to get to the part as to why it matters... (kinda skimmed through the video)

This is very interesting and informativ. Also very good metaphors!

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.

I love your channel. Great video, I never thought about this but it makes so much sense

"This is in your recommended because it relates to the spread of diseases" I'm literally trying to figure this out did you time travel to 2020 😂

6:06 seee? Thats why I don't have friends! To be healthy and safe! ❤️💪 *Cries in healthy*

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 :’)

This person has been the cause to the change in the perspective of me viewing the statistics Truly static!! 💜

“Because it relates to the spread of diseases” Rona: 👁👄👁

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 like how the title got changed over a year ago, but it still worked to get me to watch the video

Thank you for telling me why this is in my recommended :)

Actually, it's in my recommendations because it's related to maths and that's the kind of stuff I watch on RU-vid

Are you seriously drinking Kahlua with popcorn? Good gods, man....

No, this is in my recommended because I am subscribed, and I regularly watch your videos😁

This is in my recommended because of a disease but Only because I’ve been binge watching this channel

You can even use this for criminology and also infections.

I called it, he's a fucking time traveler