November 22, 2011 12:57 PM

Six-degrees of separation? Facebook says more like 4.74

By
Chenda Ngak
Topics
Tech Talk ,
Wired for Women

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
(CBS) - Shh. Do you hear that? That's the sound of Kevin Bacon fans around the world groaning at Facebook's new claim that there are no longer six-degrees of separation between us. Our connections have been reduced to 4.74.

A new study released by Facebook and researchers at the Universita degli Studi di Milano claim that the rise of modern computing allows us to properly measure our connections on a global scale. Wrap your head around the fact that they examined 721 million Facebook users, which is about 10 percent of the global population.

Compare those numbers to social psychologist Stanley Milgram's 1967 "small-world experiment," which inspired the six-degrees theory. Milgram's trial only included 296 people in the Boston area.

Using a "state-of-the-art algorithm," the researchers found that our long-time belief is an over estimation.

"We found that six degrees actually overstates the number of links between typical pairs of users: While 99.6 percent of all pairs of users are connected by paths with 5 degrees, 92 percent are connected by only four degrees," the Facebook data team said in a note.

Some of these findings are just common sense. For instance, as Facebook users grow, the degree of separation shrinks. And while the Internet makes it possible for us to be a few degrees apart, most of your Facebook friends are likely to be close in age and from the same country.

When researchers applied the same algorithm to a single country, like the U.S., Sweden or Italy, the separation dropped to three degrees.

These new findings are great, but it's going to put a damper on this season's holiday party games. "Four-point-seventy-four-degrees of Kevin Bacon" anyone?

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Add a Comment
by FL_Son November 23, 2011 6:36 AM EST
4.7 degrees world wide and only 3 degrees within nations. So, in America,there is only 3 degrees between anyone and a serial killer. What is the meaning of this ? Nothing of course, just application of statistics to massive data files.
Kinda fun, but actually useless, like so much of the technology that is consuming everyone's life today.
Reply to this comment
by oldman67 November 22, 2011 11:56 PM EST
The government wants control of the internet for one reason. To prevent the truth from being told and through research facts important to the citizens being known." if a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects was never was and never will be...if we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every citizen to be informed." Thomas Jefferson. The internet revolution makes this possible like no other time in US history. It is our duty to research and discover the truth so we as citizens can make intelligent and wise decisions concerning the welfare of our country. A person is either a loyalist, loyal to the government weather right or wrong or a patriot, loyal to to the welfare of our country,the Constitutionand the Bill of rights. It is evident the majority of those in congress have little respect for our Constitution and Bill of rights. Not when 70 members of congress voted to trash our constitution. bush caled it a G-d D--m piece of paper and Obama said it doesn't apply today.
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by Hutterite November 22, 2011 11:56 PM EST
Whatever the degree is, I don't. The best I can do is know someone who does, I guess. I go to parties, go to the bathroom, travel internationally. And the whole lot of it is none of your business. At the very least, whatever our degree of separation is, I want one more whole degree at least.
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by esq777 November 22, 2011 11:02 PM EST
I guess 10% of the global population is comprised of losers with no social life wasting time on Facebook.
Reply to this comment
by koza_dereza November 22, 2011 3:13 PM EST
Who cares?
Facebook is irrelevant, as is social media.
Reply to this comment
by pwgrant November 22, 2011 9:49 PM EST
The world is changing before your eyes. Social media has made that communication possible. Don't believe this? A few to several governments have changed radically because of it. Get your h3@d out of uor @$$ and you might s33 it.
by to_john November 22, 2011 10:17 PM EST
Apparently, 721 million people disagree with "Facebook is irrelevant, as is social media," as do you, since you are using social media just by writing a comment here.

This story could say a lot more about the connections, and lack thereof, between people. While it's true that 721mln represents approximately 10% of the world's population, that is also the wealthiest 10%, so it doesn't really represent 10% of the entire world. Still, there is a lot to be explored in this segment, especially in how we can use this new media to promote positive change, as is already occurring.
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