Today, February 4, marks Facebook’s 12th birthday. Each year we recognize this day as Friends Day and invite the world to celebrate and reflect on the importance of connecting.

When people connect, powerful things happen and lives are changed. We see this on Facebook every day, whether it’s an exchange with an old friend that brings a smile to your face or a new connection that changes your life path, or even the world.

To celebrate, we are releasing an updated degrees of separation statistic, highlighting inspiring stories about the power of friendship, and launching new products to further encourage our community to rally around their friends today.

Facebook Community Continues to Grow Closer
We know that people are more connected today than ever before. Over the past five years, the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size. Today we’re announcing that during that same time period, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has continued to decrease to 3.57 degrees, down from 3.74 degrees in 2011. This is a significant reflection of how closely connected the world has become.

Introducing Friends Day Videos
To help our community celebrate the importance of friendship, we’re delivering a personalized Friends Day video to millions of people around the world. These videos stitch together special moments with your friends in a short film that can be edited and shared. People can view their video at the top of News Feed, or by clicking “Watch Yours” below a friend’s Friends Day video.

Telling Stories of Friendship
Friends Day is also an occasion to celebrate extraordinary stories about the power of friendship. GirlCrew, a Facebook group originally created in Dublin, empowers women to find friends and organize events in their area. There are now 22,000 people in GirlCrew Facebook groups in more than 40 cities worldwide. Earlier this week, we hosted an intimate Friends Day event where 18 members of the Facebook community with incredible stories, including GirlCrew, were invited to come to our Menlo Park headquarters.

Best Friends and Friendship Sticker Packs
To give people a fun way to show friends they care, we’re releasing two sticker packs called “Best Friends” and “Friendship.” These packs are now available to download for free in the Sticker Store, which can be accessed in Messenger or at facebook.com/stickers.

This Friends Day, take a moment to connect with your friends, share your Friends Day videos, and post using the hashtag #friendsday.