A new study has found that Facebook's 721 million users are separated from each other by just 4.74 friends. That means, there's just three people separating you from someone who participated in one of those disgusting Facebook chicken pox parties.

From the Times:

The researchers used a set of algorithms developed at the University of Milan to calculate the average distance between any two people by computing a vast number of sample paths among Facebook users. They found that the average number of links from one arbitrarily selected person to another was 4.74. In the United States, where more than half of people over 13 are on Facebook, it was just 4.37.

This of course contradicts the old "six degrees" study, which showed six people separated everyone on Earth. Some say this shows Facebook is bringing us closer together. But really? According to our unofficial calculations, a full quarter of Facebook connections are made in late-night drunken mass friending sessions, chosen almost at random from your friends of friends' list, to be wondered at upon waking at your keyboard the next morning with a pounding headache—How the hell do I know that guy? Another quarter are fake hot women created by China in order to infiltrate American society.

[Image via Getty]