The concept of six degrees of separation is an idea that continues to fascinate a lot of people, including the hyperconnected.
Techcrunch featured an article yesterday that suggests that the degrees of separation between people are shrinking as technology improves as more people share their passions and interests online.
As you may recall – I wrote a series of articles about hyperconnectivity and six degrees of separation a few weeks ago – the six degrees of separation concept was popularized by writer John Guare in the 1990s, represented in both a play and a movie called Six Degrees of Separation. The concept, describing the average number of connections that separate people, emerged from experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s.
The Techcrunch article discusses a study conducted for French mobile carrier O2 which, while not necessarily indicative of the general population, showed that their test group of people could link to a random set of strangers by using shared interests within three degrees.
Put another way, if you were in an online group that identified you as being, say, a baseball fan, then you could connect to other baseball fans within these groups with no more than three degrees of separation OR you could connect by using your network of baseball fans to connect to a random stranger.
It’s an interesting study. Again, even in a hyperconnected age, I wouldn’t feel confident in saying that we have consistently halved the degrees of separation between everyone in the world – the O2 study doesn’t make that claim either. However, the collection of hyperconnectivity, social media sites that feature shared interests, and a growing desire to communicate with a wider range of people will likely continue to reduce the six degrees of separation.
As always, I’m curious to know what other people think? Is the world really getting smaller? Do you find it easier to connect with other people that you barely know who lives many, many miles away from you? Is hyperconnectivity important?
Do you know Kevin Bacon? I still can't link myself to him…
I think that is an interesting concept that you can link within 3 degrees if you search within your hobbies. Interested in seeing the numbers.
Haven't tried to trace myself to Kevin Bacon…
It is interesting to consider how technology changes our access to people. One theory is that social networks let us maintain more connections with people we are distantly connected to—or the weak links. But the weak links often prove to be the most valuable resources for us (for getting jobs, new information, etc.) Dodds, Muhamad & Watts (2003) did a 6-degrees study with email exchanges (instead of phone or snail mail). They found that completed chains had an average length of ~4 links, but also that the most successful chains were completed through people's weak links!
I can believe it. I think weak links (or initially weak links) provide ways for us to transcend our current social networks.
Hi Mark, it's an interesting concept. I wonder if social networking can half those degrees of seperation? and I'm not so sure. I guess we get to connect with more people but that doesn't really bring us closer to folk we were six degrees away from before. But I do think it enables to connect with them quicker – eg in terms of passing on a marketing message etc.
I think social networking and the like can make it easier to contact people (and hopefully get a response) than in previous decades. Will that actually make people any closer? Dunno yet.
My sister and I started uber-commenting on blogs recently and we ended up in the same community but we came at it from completely different blogs and without any discussion of how we were blogging/looking for blog to comment on.
So, yeah, the world is getting smaller, for sure.
Hi Alex. That's cool how you and your sister commented your way to the same destination from different starting points. How many steps did it take for you to meet up at the same blog?
[...] More on hyperconnectivity and six – or three – degrees of separation [...]