Visualizing Friendships: This is a reaffirmation of the impact Facebook has on connecting people, even across oceans and borders. Beautiful! Important to note China (and a few other places) are mostly absent from this map.
Well I think trade and transportation have probably played a bigger role in facilitating these connections, but Facebook definitely facilitates keeping in touch. I’m not sure so much about making new connections though.
The lines you see between countries probably comes largely from the people who have lived in multiples countries, and made friends in each place.