Facebook monthly active users

As Facebook users have grown, Super Bowl chicken wing consumption has grown, a correlation of 0.978 that sounds like social media makes people hungry and actually just reflects a growing, connected population that watches the Super Bowl while scrolling Facebook and eating wings simultaneously. The feed scrolls, the wing disappears, and both activities happen on the same couch during the same commercial break.

Facebook MAUs grew from about 1.7 billion to over 3 billion between 2015 and 2024. Super Bowl wings consumed grew from about 1.3 billion to over 1.45 billion. Both are upward curves driven by the same growing, connected global population: more users means more viewers, more viewers means more wings, and more wings means more posts about wings. The Super Bowl is one of Facebook's highest-traffic days.

Ten years of Facebook and wings is a correlation between two outputs of the same Super Bowl viewing party: the social media post and the chicken wing, consumed together by the same person during the same event. The photo of the wing platter is posted. The wing is eaten. The algorithm serves both.