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Facebook shows we are closer than ever

Posted By: Jayenne MontanaNovember 23rd, 2011

Please don’t call the cops just yet, I’m no stalker! (I simply don’t have the time for a hobby).

I have been reading about how a joint research project in which Facebook and the University of Milan have used ‘Friends’ data to reevaluate Stanley Milgram’s “Six Degrees of Separation” theory of the early 60’s and found that we are all in fact closer than we thought.

For those who’ve got this far and is still thinking why the picture of Kevin Bacon?  You’d probably be interested to know that the “Six Degrees” theory is probably best known as Six degrees of Kevin Bacon based on the idea that any individual involved in the Hollywood, film industry can be linked through his or her film roles to actor Kevin Bacon within six steps. The game being to pick any actor then through their films work your way back to a film with Kevin in. The fewest links wins.

Apparently we are all now just under 5 degrees from any other person on the planet – For those more pedantic than us who view ‘rounding off numbers’ as simply  “WRONG”, you will be please to know that 99.6% of people (probably including you), enjoy a separation of 4.74 degrees from every other person (including me).

Closer still for 92% of people because that’s how many of us are separated by just 4 degrees.

How many steps are you from someone famous? – don’t be a stranger to our comments feature if you have an interesting somebody you link to.

Whilst you are working that out, I am off to research how this affects the number of steps Kevin Bacon is from a film that I wasn’t watching solely because I thought it would increase my chances of getting a second date.

Tags: Kevin Bacon, six degrees, Statistics
Posted in General

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