The small world phenomenon (also known as the small world effect) is the hypothesis that everyone in the world can be reached through a short chain of social acquaintances. The concept gave rise to the famous phrase six degrees of separation after a 1967 small world experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram which suggested that two random US citizens were connected on average by a chain of six acquaintances. That is, on average, a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend knows the president of the United States, or the Queen of the Netherlands, or the president of France or Osama and so on… However, after more than forty years its status as a description of heterogeneous social networks (such as the aforementioned "everyone in the world") still remains an open question. Little research has been done in this area since the publication of the original paper. To demonstrate the “Six Degrees Theory”: I will choose random people at different times (300k, 400k, 450k, 500k, 550k, 600k, 650k ,700k, 750k, 800k, 850k, 900k, 950k, 1000k) and try to connect them with me. The average degrees of separation should be no more than 6 between me and the randomly chosen subject. Obviously, there are some flaws and limitations in testing out this theory on imeem….but it’s a start. As I find more time I’ll try to connect more people. Also, keep in mind that the degrees of separation may be less than 6 for online networks and may not be a fair representation of the world. So the demonstration is limited to online networks. To demonstrate the “small world phenomenon”: The small world phenomenon can simply be demonstrated by the fact that if I invite all of my friends to join and they invite theirs to join and so on, then through such acquaintances, it seems that we will be able to reach the whole world (world in this case being the imeem community). I encourage those who are interested to contemplate the idea of the “Six Degrees of Separation" on the discussion boards and whether you find it plausible or not. It seems that while this group cannot prove or disprove the theory of the “Six Degrees of Separation", it may however demonstrate that the whole world can possibly be reached through a short chain of acquaintances. It will be interesting to see how this works out. Feel free to use the wall to tell of personal experiences and interesting connections. You can also try connecting to others in this group if you have nothing better to do…it’s kinda fun and you’ll be amazed at how closely you can be connected to someone on the other side of the world!
