Growing old on Facebook: Search data reveals we talk more about the weather and politics as we age Researchers analysed the likes and dislikes of people to find out what different age groups are interested in Found the average 35 year old has four separate 'clusters of friends' Average number of Facebook friends is 342 Facebook holds vast amounts of data on our likes, dislikes and friends - and has now revealed how our tastes change as we age. Steven Wolfram, the man behind the Wolfram search engine, has analysed the anonymous data from Facebook users who donated their information - and found we are far more likely to talk about the weather and politics, and less about computer games. He also found we accumulate 'clusters' of friends as we grow older - with the average 35-year-old having just over four, and the average Facebook user having 342 friends. Experts have analysed the anonymous data from Facebook users who donated their information - and found out exactly how what we talk about changes as we grow old Wolfram's sample suggests that people accumulate more clusters over time, with the average 15-year-old sample in his data has between two and three clusters of Facebook friends. 'I've always been interested in people and the trajectories of their lives,' he said. 'But I've never been able to combine that with my interest in science - until now. 'It's been quite a thrill over the past few weeks to see the results we've been able to get, sometimes confirming impressions I've had; sometimes showing things I never would have guessed.' The graphs also reveal the number of friends people around the world have. There are some curious effects. Global popularity: Researchers mapped which countries have the most friends 'Countries like Russia and China have low median friend counts because Facebook isn't widely used for connections between people inside those countries. And perhaps there are lower friend counts in the western US because of lower population densities. 'But quite why there are higher friend counts for our Facebook population in places like Iceland, Brazil and the Philippines - or Mississippi - I don't know.' Facebook by age: The study looked at how much topics were mentioned by different age groups. Politics and weather become far more interesting among the older, while our interest in video games wanes 'It's almost shocking how much this tells us about the evolution of people's typical interests,' he said. People talk less about video games as they get older, and more about politics and the weather. Men typically talk more about sports and technology than women - and, somewhat surprisingly to me, they also talk more about movies, television and music. Women talk more about pets+animals, family+friends, relationships - and, at least after they reach child-bearing years, health. The peak time for anyone to talk about school+university is around age 20, the results found, while people get less interested in talking about birthdays through their teens, but gradually gain interest later. 'Some of this is rather depressingly stereotypical,' Wolfram admits. 'But what to me is remarkable is how we can see everything laid out in such quantitative detail in the pictures above - kind of a signature of people's thinking as they go through life.' Facebook by age: The study looked at how much topics were mentioned by different age groups, and found far less interest in fashion and films, while interest in food and drink and careers rose