From Degrees of Separation to Mirrors
How many people would it take to connect any two people on the planet? Via a friend of a friend…of a friend chain? In 1929, the answer was called out to be “ six degrees of separation ”. Recently they tested that via (what else?) Facebook! Laugh all you like, but Facebook’s sample size is 1.59 billion users which I am pretty sure is way bigger than whatever sample size they used in 1929. The answer ? In 2011, Facebook analysis yielded an average of 3.74. Today, when even more people are on Facebook, the answer has shrunk to 3.57. This isn’t the first time Facebook has been used to analyze social theories. The dataset that Facebook has is unparalleled for such analysis. On the other hand, that raises privacy concerns…. Talking of tech companies, they sure do weird things. Often out of paranoia. Like when Google got into mobile long before the iPhone based on their fear of Microsoft dominating mobile and locking Google out. Today, with the dominance of Android and iOS, that see...