Six Degrees of Separation
I attended a secondary school guy classmate’s wedding yesterday and was surprised to find out how small the world really is. I met my primary school classmate at the wedding, who is also the friend of the groom. And my husband met his friend’s wife there who is the friend of the bride!
There is an old theory orginated by Stanley Milgram in 1967 that everyone in the world is connected by just six degrees of separation - to show that everyone in the modern world was capable of connecting to another by linking people and interests.
But in today’s world of social networking, links between strangers are believed to be closer than in Milgram’s day. A study from French mobile carrier O2 has found that strangers are more connected to each other than they ever have been.
According to the study, the average person is now connected by just three degrees within a shared “interest” or social group instead of six. In fact, it found that people are usually a part of three main networks: family, friendship, and work.
O2 asked adults across three different age groups — 18-25, 35-45, 55+ — to make contact with random strangers from areas all across the globe using only personal connections. By linking their shared interests, the participants were able to connect to that person in three person-to-person links. [Read more from the source document]
How scary! The connections are so close that people can easily gossip. You can’t keep secrets anymore because out of a sudden your this side of the world is revealed to the other side. So people, becareful of what you say and what you do, now you cannot afford to make any mistake hoping that you can get away by starting a new & clean network!
