

Facebook Prototype Measures Gross National Happiness - cwan
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/03/facebook-prototype-measures-gross-national-happiness-confirms-that-we-hate-mondays/

======
kakooljay
That's cool [!] but should they be calling it Gross National Happiness? If you
think so, have a look at this:
[http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/polls-and-the-
dewe...](http://orgtheory.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/polls-and-the-deweytruman-
contest)

Btw, according to Helen Birtwhistle [[http://clive-
shepherd.blogspot.com/2007/09/are-facebook-frie...](http://clive-
shepherd.blogspot.com/2007/09/are-facebook-friends-real-friends.html)] (press
officer for the Institute of Ideas):

\- the average Facebook user has 150 friends \- the average American has two
close friends \- 25% of Americans have no close friends

So the Q is: How representative are active Facebook users of Americans in
general?

~~~
cwan
I have a few friends who have more than a thousand facebook "friends" but if
you were to ask at least one of them how many friends he considered "close",
he would answer probably none. Personally I see Facebook just as something of
a way to keep in touch with contacts - I really don't see it as anything more
than that. Not that I really care either way, I'd be more curious about the
question of how many facebook friends the average user would consider to be
friends let alone good friends offline.

