1 billion people used Facebook on Monday, but what’s in a billion?
More than 1 billion people logged on to Facebook on Monday – the first time the social media site has hit that milestone.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg put it this way: “On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.”
Just how do you wrap your mind around 1 billion anything?
In his book for children, “How Much is a Million?,” mathematician David M. Schwartz explained 1 billion like this: “How big is a billion? If a billion kids made a human tower, they would stand up past the moon.
“If you sat down to count from one to one billion, you would be counting for 95 years. If you found a goldfish bowl large enough hold a billion goldfish, it would be as big as a stadium.”
Yep, that’s a lot of goldfish.
Here some other significant 1 billion stats to consider. Of course you’ll want to share them on Facebook:
▪ One billion dogs live on the planet, according to University of Missouri professor Matthew Gompper admittedly inexact estimate last year. That’s a lot of Facebook likes.
▪ American cats kill at least 1.3 billion birds – and as many as 4 billion birds – every year. Bad kitties!
▪ Someone between the ages of 31 and 32 years has lived for 1 billion seconds.
▪ In the United States, McDonald’s customers eat 1 billion pounds of beef in a year – five and a half million head of cattle.
▪ Justin Bieber’s “Baby” video has been seen 1.2 billion times on YouTube. Passing the 1 billion mark on YouTube is an extremely rare feat.
▪ Want to be president of the United States? You’ll need about $1 billion to run.
▪ In 2010, the planet crossed the 1-billion-cars-on-the-road mark for the first time ever.
▪ About 1 billion people live in Africa, the second-biggest continent on the planet.
▪ The 1 billionth baby in India was born on May 11, 2000. Her name was Astha Arora. “I didn’t understand what 1 billionth meant. I was very surprised,” said her mother.
▪ About 1.2 billion M&Ms would fill half of an Olympic-size swimming pool to a depth of 6 feet, 7 inches.
▪ There are said to be 1 billion tennis fans in America, Asia and Europe.
▪ See what happened when La-Z-Boy had to get rid of 1 billion yards of upholstery fabric last year:
This story was originally published August 28, 2015 at 12:40 PM with the headline "1 billion people used Facebook on Monday, but what’s in a billion?."