Popular lore has it that every human being on earth is connected to every other via a chain of no more than six social contacts — 'six degrees of separation.' That buzz-phrase, ensconced in our vocabulary during the 1990s by a play and a film of that title, originated from an experiment conducted in 1967 by psychologist Stanley Milgram which seemed to prove, albeit based on a tiny sampling of Americans, that it really is a small world after all. Despite its impact on pop culture, the notion has long had its detractors, including Dr. Judith Kleinfeld of the University of Alaska, who dismisses it as 'the academic equivalent of an urban myth' due to methodological weaknesses in the 1967 study and the lack of follow-up research.
Enter the Internet. The Electonic Small World Project, begun at Columbia University in 1999, is an attempt to confirm the 'small world' thesis on a global scale, using, of all things, email chain letters. The preliminary results, announced in the current issue of Science, are no less controversial than Milgram's. A New York Times article (free registration required) published today reports that researchers found that the successful chain letters — those which actually reached their intended targets via an indirect route of acquaintances — arrived quickly and in as few as four steps — an actual improvement on Milgram's results. The bad news is that 98 percent of the messages never reached their targets at all, because so many intermediary recipients — nearly two-thirds — simply didn't bother to forward them.
So, even as the designers of the study claim provisional success, skeptics like Kleinfeld continue to cry foul. 'Instead of showing we live in a small world,' she told the Times, it really shows the opposite. Ninety-eight percent of people can't reach anybody.'
Perhaps it's a medium-sized world after all.
Enter the Internet. The Electonic Small World Project, begun at Columbia University in 1999, is an attempt to confirm the 'small world' thesis on a global scale, using, of all things, email chain letters. The preliminary results, announced in the current issue of Science, are no less controversial than Milgram's. A New York Times article (free registration required) published today reports that researchers found that the successful chain letters — those which actually reached their intended targets via an indirect route of acquaintances — arrived quickly and in as few as four steps — an actual improvement on Milgram's results. The bad news is that 98 percent of the messages never reached their targets at all, because so many intermediary recipients — nearly two-thirds — simply didn't bother to forward them.
So, even as the designers of the study claim provisional success, skeptics like Kleinfeld continue to cry foul. 'Instead of showing we live in a small world,' she told the Times, it really shows the opposite. Ninety-eight percent of people can't reach anybody.'
Perhaps it's a medium-sized world after all.
Comments
Funny.. i always found the story to good to be true. It’s more like we live a big world. Internet sure is making it a lot easier to get to know ‘everybody’ but the world round in 6 steps. I dont think so.. Never mind the ever growing population !
This theory is very interesting and I want to invite you to be one of the first members to a new site.
It is an invitation only website and I think you will really like it. We are starting it with only the people that know and appreciate the six degrees theory.
http://www.GoogolMeHere.com . Kind of like a “MySpace” for grownups. It is based on the 6 degrees of Separation theory. I want to see how far my 6 degrees of separation can reach. It is really pretty interesting. And there is nothing else like it on the internet.
I have been looking for a friend for 21 years and still can not find her. I was on MySpace but it was impossible to find my own daughter there.
Anyway, check it out and I hope to see you there. You never know who you will end up reconnecting with. Just put in this email address (GoogolBug@aol.com) in the Invitation section on the homepage and you can get in. Once you register, you can invite as many people as you want to. Make sure you read the “About Us” section to understand the website concept. By the way, the Basic site is FREE!
It is difficult to take a critic like Dr Kleinfeld any more seriously than the original assertion when they are committing gaffs like declaring, “Instead of showing we live in a small world, it really shows the opposite. Ninety-eight percent of people can’t reach anybody.” The data shows no such thing about that remaining 98 percent, and to suggest that it does is the epitome of academic laziness. I don’t have a particular belief one way or the other about the six-degrees hypothesis. I do, however, believe that self-promoted experts should at least make a modest effort to speak precisely.