London, Nov 23 (ANI): A new research by Facebook has debunked the theory of 'six degrees of separation.'
It used to be that we were all just six degrees of separation apart - i.e. you could 'connect' anyone to anyone else via finding a friend who knew someone else, who knew someone else, and so on.
But the new Facebook research has found that the gap between us all has shrunk - to as little as four people.
The average person needs just 4.74 'hops' to get to anybody in the world, be it a Hollywood star or a peasant living in rural China.
The figure has gone down from 5.28 in 2008 due to the rise in social networking and sharing websites.
No longer are we six degrees of separation apart - Earth is much smaller now than it used to be.
Facebook worked with researchers at the Universita degli Studi di Milano in Italy and looked at all 721million of its active users, equivalent to 10 per cent of the world's population and a total of 69billion friendships.
In the largest study of its kind ever undertaken, they found that as Facebook has grown the average distance between users has shrunk to 4.74 hops, but in some places it is even less.
When their analysis was limited to single countries the numbers were lower and in the U.S., Sweden or Italy it was closer to an even four.
"In these works, we show how the Facebook social network is at once both global and local," the Daily Mail quoted Facebook researchers as saying.
"It connects people who are far apart, but also has the dense local structure we see in small communities.
"As Facebook has grown over the years, representing an ever larger fraction of the global population, it has become even more connected.
"When considering even the most distant Facebook user in the Siberian tundra or the Peruvian rainforest, a friend of your friend probably knows a friend of their friend," the researchers added. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
