1. Influence of Social Networking on the Six Degrees of Separation By Nicholas Kwan Image by lukezhang

2. The term “six degrees of separation” was coined in the late 1960s from a Stanley Milgram experiment Source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18417083 Image by tikaro

3. Milgram gave 300 letters to people asking them to a particular target by mailing the letter to a friend closer to the target Image by bettybl

4. Milgram found that the average chain of people it took to deliver the letter was only 6 people Image by ak23

5. In 2006, Microsoft tried to prove this theory and studied over 30 billion electronic conversations over MSN messenger Image by indircom Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/03/internet.email

6. By looking at roughly HALF the world’s instant-messaging network only, it was concluded that any two strangers are distanced (on average) by 6.6 degrees Image by roebedo

7. HOWEVER…..the people we would send mail or the people we would instantly message is VERY SMALL compared to….. Image by bassie

8. …Our Facebook friends

9. can help reduce the number of degrees it takes for 2 strangers to be connected Image by facebook.com

10. Many of us today have a lot more social media friends than “real” friends Image from twitter.com

11. The average user has 130 Facebook friends but most of us know at least 1 person with over 1000 friends Source: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

12. Social media friends today have become one time acquaintances or people we don’t talk to anymore Image by tychay

13. Facebook even helps with this process by suggesting people you may know

14. Facebook created an application to calculated the degree of separation between people Image by Mehfuz

15. The average separation between people was 5.73 degrees – nearly a full person lower than Microsoft’s experiment Image by em’ila

16. This number is despite the fact that only 5.8 million people used the app which excludes nearly 6 billion people in the world

17. In 2008, O2 performed a study that revealed the “average person is connected by just 3 degrees within a shared ‘interest’ or social group instead of 6”-Don Reisinger Source: http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/six-degrees-of-separation-is-now-three/

18. With the growing use of social networking, links between strangers are much closer today than in the 1960s image by natalialove

19. We see a gradual decline in degrees from the 1960s to the present day Image by lau-rain

20. Who knows what the future will hold but I’m sure it will bring us closer together Image by luzzu

21. Credits All images are licensed under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share-Alike 3.0 agreement and sourced from flickr