One of the most talked-about articles Tuesday is the revelation that there are not six degrees degrees of separation between any two people, but 4.74 degrees. John Markoff and Somini Sengupta, reporters for The New York Times, write that the original “six degrees” finding, published in 1967 by the psychologist Stanley Milgram, was drawn from 296 volunteers who were asked to send a message by postcard, through friends and then friends of friends, to a specific person in a Boston suburb.
The new research used a slightly bigger cohort: 721 million Facebook users, more than one-tenth of the world’s population.
The researchers also found that in the United States, where more than half of people over 13 are on Facebook, it was just 4.37.
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I think I knew it had to be less than six when I tried the “6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon” starting with me, and got there in four steps.
Creepy.
I imagine FB and other social networking might continue to carve down that average number.