I know President Obama. I also know Leonardo DiCaprio, Thom Yorke and J.K. Rowling. The theory of six degrees of separation postulates that everyone is on average around six steps, by way of introduction, to any other person on earth. Two people anywhere in the world can theoretically be connected (via introduction) to anyone else in six steps or fewer. The point of the ‘six degrees’ theory is to demonstrate that the world and the connections people establish and maintain within it are much closer than previously supposed.
The Small World Experiment, conducted by Stanley Milgram starting in 1967, was intended to explain the idea that the world was becoming increasingly interconnected. Milgram sought to study the hypothesis that two randomly selected people would know each other. He specifically confined his study to the United States, selecting random individuals from Omaha and Wichita as starting points and individuals from Boston as end points.
Milgram sent packets with information to the randomly selected starting individuals with a specified (randomly selected) ending contact in Boston. The starting person signed their name on a roster and forwarded it along to a friend, relative or acquaintance that was more likely to know the person in question. Researchers would then track the progression of the roster and use it to discern how many numbers of times it took to reach the end point from the starting point.
Facebook has just released data from a similar type of study (using their own data culled directly from their website), and have suggested that people are separated from one another by on average less than five connections (with the exact number coming in on average at 4.74). Facebook utilized the data from the friend networks of 721 million people, which is estimated to be about a tenth of the world’s population. Data was crunched using super computers and the results were released, updating statics from three years ago that suggested that people were separated by an average of 5.28 degrees in 2008.
Bear in mind that these were in fact worldwide statistics. Statistics examining the connections between people living in the same country suggested that people living in the same country are separated from one another by an average of only three connections.
While this certainly shows that the world is getting smaller for some individuals (between the tech savvy, those who have access to Facebook and those who utilize the site frequently), I can’t help but think that this data is somewhat skewed. Data for this study was collected not from random members of the population, but from those who had the access to technology to establish and often times maintain a Facebook account.
On top of that, this was an opt-in service, so what about the people who don’t want to use Facebook for various reasons? Plenty of social butterflies out there do not use Facebook, and there are plenty of other people who would not have that many connections. Can the results truly be accurate if the study is only representative of a specific sector of the population?
Regardless of how representative these results are of the global population, they are a testament to technology’s power to connect people and are evidence for the fact that it really is a small world after all.
