Reducing Six Degrees Of Web Separation Part I

July 28th. 2008, 4:00am

The phrase six degrees of separation is permanently etched into our collective psyches. The idea that every person in the world is generally no more than six degrees or connections removed from each other is a powerful, sticky concept that resonates with many people. Web 2.0 technologies, a continuation of the advancement of communication capabilities, may be helping us cut that average in half, especially through social networking sites like Facebook and microblogging services like Twitter. Or will technology be stymied by human nature? In this series of posts, we’re going to explore the concepts of connections and networking and try to determine whether or not they effectively serve to flatten and shrink our world.

Six degrees of separation

This catch phrase was inspired by the results of the “small world” experiments conducted by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the United States of America in 1967 in order to determine how long it would take to get a letter from one stranger to another. After the results of this test were analyzed, Milgram’s team determined that the average path length, or the number of connections required to get from one point to another, was approximately 5.5, which rounds up to six.

Over time, the phrase “six degrees of separation” was coined and made popular by the entertainment world. John Guare’s 1990 play of the same name helped to entrench the phrase into popular culture. The Milgram experiments were also referred to in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point in his descriptions of how fads and ideas can spread through society.

The limiting factors of the “six degrees” experiment

The small world experiments were conducted using postal mail in a limited number of scenarios. The world of 1967 did not have the same communications tools that we have today, not as dispersed and as highly used as we currently do.

However, subsequent research has yielded some interesting results. Researcher Duncan Watts tested this theory using E-Mail in 2001 and determined that “six degrees” was the average path length between participants located in over 157 countries. Jure Leskovec and Eric Horvitz used Microsoft Messenger as their medium of choice in 2007 and found an average path length of 6.6, which is similar to the findings in the other two studies.

It’s worth noting that in all three examples, the messages used a single transport mechanism (postal mail; email, and a single instant messenger service).

The potential shortening effect of hyperconnectivity

Those of us who work and/or play in the social media world have seen a significant growth in the number of communication methods that can be used via the Web. Although many of these services are variations of common functionality sets, they have separate communities of users with significant overlap. If you belong to one online community, it’s very likely that you’ll belong to several. In fact, in this “hyperconnected world”, many of us belong to multiple online communities and we use different communication methods depending on our needs.

Is it possible that we can shrink the size of the world further than the experiments of Milgram, Watts, and Leskovec and Horvitz have shown by using hyperconnectivity to remove degrees of separation?

In my next post, I’ll discuss the pros of using hyperconnectivity to remove degrees. Following that, I’ll look at the constraints on the effectiveness of hyperconnectivity and I’ll present some conclusions on the topic.

Stay tuned!

EDIT: Sept. 3/08 – Techcrunch has an interesting post about apparent shrinkage in the degrees of separation

Previous in series

Table of contents for six degrees

How hyperconnectivity really could eliminate degrees of separation
The challenges of connecting with hyperconnectivity
Hyperconnectivity shakes up six degrees of separation
Reducing the six degrees of separation

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Hollow

The original Milgram experiment used people who didn't know all the network connections - when they passed on the postcard they passed on to whoever they guessed would know the name on the card - this is rarely the shortest path. If all users had full knowledge of everyone else in the system, the actual degree of separation drops drastically. Increasing the number of connections doesn't really help, since you're just increasing the number of possibilities. You'll end up with more loops. The best way would be total education to each user of the entire network, something which really only a search engine or automation could hope to do.

Mark Dykeman

Sorry this is late, your comment got stuck in moderation for some reason. Interesting perspective on Milgram - good points.

ijeanes

Hey. Great posting.

I agree to a point that such technologies might reduce this degree of separation but with things like Twitter and Facebok, it's so easy to not be entirely connected. There are two points I'm trying to make and I digress easily so apologies... but... 1) You can be quite passive with online relationships and not engage in the same manner as verbal mean and 2) You can have a very different relationship on these sites to ones you'd have through the normal means.

MEANING: Each of the people through the degrees of seperation are relationships are most likely to be built on physical connectivity and not electrical. I personally think that the thing that gets reduced through Web 2.0 technologies, isn't the degree of separation necesarily, but the degree of introduction. It's far easier to introduce yourselves through the anonymity or safe-keeping of being online than getting out there and being physically introduced and having barriers that are normally alongside face-to-face contact.

But whilst, I feel that it won't cut down on the degree of separation as comparable means, it certainly opens up an enitre new way of meeting people who you would normally fail to notice or engage with for reasons the comes with face-to-face meetings. Could such technologies close the gap on communities who fail to engage with others because of prejudice? Do you think it's possible that because emotion/tone/accents etc, can be disguised or aren't conveyed as easily as face-to-face, that prejudicism will change for the better?

A new question entirely... and I've totally changed the focus for my point but it's evidently opened a window I didn't realise was there. Oxygen anybody?

Mark Dykeman

ijeanes, good stuff. You've touched upon a couple of things that I'll be addressing later in this series. Physical connectivity has historically trumped any other kind of connectivity, but maybe that's starting to weaken a bit.

ijeanes

That maybe true. But hyperconnectivity might very well be under a different classification to the 6 degrees. I'm connected to some people through Linked In who I haven't met yet, and they might not necessarily be interested in meeting me because of my job title, length of time I've been employed in my job, past employers etc. Personality is effectively what makes connections and the connection is created through association and common ground.

As I'm speaking I'm losing my point because I actually totally agree with what you say about the 6 degrees of separation... but I don't think the use of technology can replace a quality relationship where friendships and business connections are made. This is where my answer evolves... there are certainly pluses and minuses to using such devices to build relationships - lord knows it's something I'm trying to experiment with... but eventually, if technology prevails over personality, there will be a social revolution where people will meet people. I can see it now.

But in saying all of that, I think this social evolution of technology means that introductions are softer, easier and take away the awkwardness that comes with social interaction and initial introductions... like the prejudices of this world. Thanks to spellchecker etc even dyslexics can feel comfortable. People with Stutter can prevail in fluent conversation... It will further open up the social world but whether it will become so strong as to take away the joys of meeting someone face-to-face, I really hope not. :-)

Tim

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon
http://oracleofbacon.org/

Potentially you could do this online by pairing people who commented on the same blog post. Find out who really is the center of the blogosphere!

Mark Dykeman

Hadn't seen that before, Tim. It's fun!

Svetlana Gladkova

Great thoughts here Mike. I sure agree that the number of degrees should diminish based on the communication tools we have at our disposal. Sure, it may take 6 degrees to find a person if you don't know where to find this person and who you know in common. But tools such as LinkedIn make it way much easier - I don't even remember looking up someone's profile and having this person beyond the 3rd circle. That just means that in the right place I can find the people I need easier.

Mark Dykeman

Yes, Svetlana, the tools are making connections a bit easier. Sometimes it's still hard to get someone's attention, though, which I'll be discussing in a follow-up blog post.

Svetlana Gladkova

That's obvious - I guess getting attention does not really depend a lot on how many degrees separate the two people. The only exception is when you are personally introduced by someone you both trust - but that rarely happens online. So I'll be looking forward to the follow-up post from you.

Dario de Judicibus

Some considerations on 6DoS:

http://lindipendente.splinder.com/post/18765479...

Sujay Ghosh

I had recently attended the "Six degrees of seperation, the science of a connected age" by Duncan Watts.

There was an interesting question - its difficult to get a doorman in New York WITHOUT referral.
So there is trust involved , which i think LinkedIn tries to address by asking a couple of questions. Even though the questions can be faked by some user , by providing wrong information, I guess there still some issues are still to be addressed for the getting the trustworthiness of another person on the web.

Broadcasting Brain

Reducing the six degrees of separation

Six degrees of separation

The limiting factors of the “six degrees” experiment

The potential shortening effect of hyperconnectivity

Table of contents for six degrees

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