Social networks bringing the world closer

Facebook says we're all a lot closer than we'd think. Are social networks doing it right?

Forget the famous 6 degrees of separation; the stipulation that you are 6 friends removed from someone- that's a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend away from someone (or something like that).

Today Facebook announced that since the rise of social networking in the forms of twitter, Facebook and (not so much) myspace- people have, on average, 4.74 'hops' of separation between themselves and a stranger.

The data took a month to collate and studied over 69 billion connections on the social network; when scrutinised the data reveals that "when we limit our analysis to a single country, be it the US, Sweden, Italy, or any other, we find that the world gets even smaller, and most pairs of people are only separated by 3 degrees (4 hops)", according to Cameron Marlow; research scientist at Facebook.

The original theory of six degrees of separation was proposed by the American social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, who proposed his theory in the mid 1960s, the number of 'hops' between people has gradually reduced, being just over 5 in 2008.

According to this data, that means you're really not all that distant from a fishing haven in indonesia, or a tribe in the amazonian rainforest...

Does this scare you? We're just off to learn to chorus to 'it's a small world', come and join us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+!

Social networks bringing the world closer

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Which smartphone manufacturer wins your vote?

Social networks bringing the world closer

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Which smartphone manufacturer wins your vote?