Microsoft Researchers Suggest Six Degrees Of Separation May Actually Be Accurate
from the ah,-technology dept
The concept of "Six Degrees of Separation" was originally based on an experiment by Stanley Milgram where he asked people to try to send a letter to someone totally unconnected to them by passing it from person to person among people they knew. The idea was that, on average, any two random people could be connected within six connections. However, more recently, Milgram's study had been somewhat discredited. Yet, a new study, coming from Microsoft researchers suggests that six degrees may be fairly accurate. The researchers looked at data on how people use Microsoft's MSN Instant Messaging software, and discovered that the average chain length to connect any two users on the software was 6.6, and that 78% of all random pairs could be connected in fewer than 7 hops. Of course, what isn't accounted for is whether or not this has changed in the 40 years since Milgram's experiment, during which technology may have made connectivity much easier. Also, thanks to things like instant messaging, people who I might have otherwise completely lost touch with are now "permanently" listed as my friends. That's a bit different than the world in 1967.
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Filed Under: im, research, six degrees of separation, stanley milgram
Companies: microsoft
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Tom
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Re: Tom
(Go watch "Moonraker" if you don't understand... youngins!)
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Has anyone heard of The Secret?
I mean, you have to read the book or watch the movie to understand. But, it is weird.
~ Jim
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Re: Has anyone heard of The Secret?
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Re: Has anyone heard of The Secret?
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Re: Re: Has anyone heard of The Secret?
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Re: Has anyone heard of The Secret?
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The Secret
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Hmm...
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The Secret
And if that helps people, then why not?
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Re: The Secret
Thinking positively is a good thing. The problem is that trying to claim "The Secret" is only about thinking positively is a bald-faced lie. It does make claims that you can exert magical powers through your thoughts, such as dissolving traffic jams merely by thinking that you won't be stuck in one (and conversely, *causing* a traffic jam by fearing that you'll be caught in one).
It's a vicious, evil philosophy that blames the victim for everything bad that happens to them, as they could have avoided it if they'd just thought positively enough. Cancer? Your fault! Rape? Your fault! Child abuse! Guess you should have thought more positively! At the same time, it tricks people into thinking that they can succeed without putting effort into things, that they can win the lottery and land promotions and get hot chicks just by thinking that they will. Again, it is certainly true that a defeatist attitude won't help many of these things (except the lottery - you can play it with a defeatist attitude and have the same chance of winning), and a positive attitude may, but if you read the book and listen to the actual words of the author on his blog and elsewhere, you see what he's really getting at.
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Tool to test the theory
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Self-selecting sample
How many degrees do you think there are between yourself and a subsistence level individual dying of starvation in Africa ?
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Ding ding ding
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How Big Is Your Buddy List?
"whether or not this has changed in the 40 years since Milgram's experiment, during which technology may have made connectivity much easier. Also, thanks to things like instant messaging, people who I might have otherwise completely lost touch with are now "permanently" listed as my friends. That's a bit different than the world in 1967."
but I would bet that you actually personally KNOW far, far more people than you have on your MSN contact list. The fact that people only enter in a small portion of the people you know into IM should make it harder to get connected to anyone in the world in 6 hops via MSFT IM.
So this would suggest that the MSFT researchers gave themselves a more daunting task using only *subsets* of people that each person knew, and STILL came out with
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enlargebreastguide
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enlargebreastguide
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