“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that a) tremendously comforting that we’re so close and b) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It’s not just big names. It’s anyone. A native in the rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought. How Paul found us. How to find the man whose son he pretends to be. Or perhaps is his son, although I doubt it. How every person is a new door, opening up into other worlds. Six degrees of separation between me and everyone else on this planet. But to find the right six people.”1
“Oh my gosh, it’s such a small world!”
If I had a dollar for every time I repeated that phrase, I would certainly be a wealthy woman. And yet it never ceases to amaze me how many people I know who are connected to other people I know; especially when those connections seem to be completely random.2
Nowhere are these connections more evident, however, than on social media sites. Whether it’s Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections or Google+ circles, sophisticated social networks identify these links for us and make suggestions about the dots we may not have otherwise connected.
With that in mind, I wonder if it is the discovery of these connections that make social networks such an addictive pastime for so many of us? Where else can one stalk keep track of all their friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances, all at the one time, with the added benefit of being able to identify how all of these links correlate?
Why do we strive to have so many ‘friends’ on Facebook, anyway? This venn diagram says it all, really.
Image courtesy of Despair.com
The BBC documentary Six Degrees of Separation explores the idea that many of the world’s most complex systems – right down to the cellular level – are underpinned by Network Theory. If this is in fact true, then perhaps there is an innate sense within all of us to search out these links and make these connections, or even to become ‘hubs’ of human connection.
And that could certainly explain why some of us strive to have so many ‘friends’ on Facebook, too.
[ This post is a response to the flipped lecture on BBC’s documentary Six Degrees of Separation ]
1. Quote from the play ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ by John Guare
2. Funnily enough, it is the concept of the random connection that was the key to proving how Network Theory works.