Dimitri Burkhard
As of November 2010, there are 2.4 million active Facebook users in Switzerland. This number sounds small compared to the 500 million users worldwide, but it is quite significant in terms of the size of Switzerland.
This means that on average, every third Swiss is on Facebook. Accounting for the growing senior population, the density among the 18-63 yr demographic is at a whopping 82 percent!
Compared to its neighboring states, the overall proliferation of Facebook is actually quite huge (Germany: 15%, Austria: 26%) but still has not reached US levels yet (45%).
An intern at Facebook has recently plotted the connections between about 10 million pairs of Facebook friends. The result is a stunning social map of the world. It is interesting to see that the connections actually trace entire continents, with some countries like China missing altogether.
Needless to say, Switzerland is one giant spiderweb of connections going all over the place. So are you surprised by the Facebook use in Switzerland? Or not surprised at all? Please share...
BONUS: To generate your own social graph of Facebook connections, try out the Friend Wheel app!
(via datavisualization.ch, statistics by Wikipedia)
Very interesting, thank you for sharing. The statistics don’t surprise me at al when I look at all the people I connect with over facebook. It has essentially become the new phonebook. Google allows you to find information and facebook allows you to connect to it.
I also think the high percentage of expats in Switzerland is a reason for facebook’s proliferation here.
I am in South Africa and have some distant relatives in Switzerland. Is it possible, somehow to contact, or find out if there are people with the name I am searching. I am on face book in South Africa and have tried typing in the names into the search box, but with no luck. I imagine it is only searching in South Africa. Have you any advice on how I can do this?
Thnks
Jeanette
Hi Jeanette! One way of finding people with your family name might be to search for them on https://tel.search.ch. From there, you might be able to find out more about them on Facebook or by Googling their names… Good luck!
[…] Ranked right behind Scandinavian countries and Singapore, Switzerland comes in fifth in terms of use of networking technologies. Interestingly, this coincides with the statistic that every third Swiss is on Facebook… […]