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4.74 Degrees of Separation on Facebook

Posted by samzenpus on from the closer-than-you-think dept.

First time accepted submitter perryizgr8 writes "Facebook Data Team has taken all the friends data of everyone on Facebook and analyzed it, finding out the shortest distance between every two persons. They can now confidently say that the average degree of separation between any two humans is 4.74, not six as previously claimed by various entities."

19 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Disagree by Kazymyr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mine is infinity since I don't have a facebook account.

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    1. Re:Disagree by Githaron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That is the first thing I thought. It is like saying of the set of people I personally know, there is at most one degree of separation between any two people.

    2. Re:Disagree by Githaron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Wait, is the degree 0 or 1 between two people that know each other personally?

    3. Re:Disagree by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You also don't know anyone with a Facebook account, and no one you know knows anyone with a Facebook account, and so on? I'm not sure you understand what they are talking about, you read "Facebook" and just wanted to tell people you don't use it.

    4. Re:Disagree by rapidreload · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Lemme guess, you don't have a TV either but want to tell the world regardless?

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    5. Re:Disagree by fisted · · Score: 5, Insightful

      yeah, so antisocial not to hand over all data to facebook.

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      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
    6. Re:Disagree by foobsr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      is the degree 0 or 1 between two people that know each other personally

      The question might be whether the degree between you and yourself is infinity and only approaches 1 after an enormous amount of training. Just a thought.

      The implication is that any small number whithin the context given is worth ... well.

      CC.

      --
      TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
  2. Skewed Data? by Sharkyfour · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wouldn't this be skewed by all the people who befriend random strangers to increase the size of the Mafia's or farm friends?

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    sharkyfour.com
    1. Re:Skewed Data? by aicrules · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Even better than that, it's skewed to those who are on facebook. So you add those two things and we're back to 6 degrees. Dumbass story

    2. Re:Skewed Data? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh knock it off.

      Assuming Facebook relationships are used as a model for our casual relationships outside of Facebook... it probably stands up better than any previously attempted method. It's not like they're working with an overly selective sample group. And what's more, I'm not aware of any major and consistent social differences between people with and without facebook accounts. The tiny percentage of people that don't have facebook accounts specifically because they're socially phobic isn't likely to be statistically relevant.

      The real fault in it, if there is one, is that it's skewed towards 1st world people. A kid in some remote part of Africa that's never been to a large school, or even seen a computer probably can't claim to have met 300 people, by phone, computer or other personal interaction. Casual or not, they're just remote and wouldn't have been figured in.

      Douchebag neckbeards just aren't relevant.

    3. Re:Skewed Data? by Spad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However, given the perfectly valid observation that people on Facebook are much, much less selective about who they "friend" than in real life, the results will inevitably be skewed as a result.

      Additionally, Facebook has ~800 million accounts of which an unknown number are inactive, fake, duplicate or for some shitty new product, which is less than 12% of the global population.

      i.e. Whilst interesting data, it would be stupid to try and claim that it can be used to infer anything about peoples' general relationships outside of Facebook.

  3. So overall, it is 6... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    6 degrees of separation, not limited to any single medium

    Just under 5 for any two facebook'ees
    but to get to anyone not on facebook, you'd have to go one extra hop

    1. Re:So overall, it is 6... by TexVex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I understood that six degrees was supposed to be the maximum, not the average.

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  4. no it's not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it is 4.74 + 1; think about it...

    1. Re:no it's not by Tomato42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      4.75 + 1 in my book is very close to the "old, frowned up, value" of six...

    2. Re:no it's not by jrumney · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There are whole villages across Asia, Africa and South America that do not have an internet connection. Are you sure everyone on Earth knows someone with a facebook account?

    3. Re:no it's not by MurukeshM · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If even among Facebook users, between any facebook user and other facebook user there is 4.75 person, it is 4.75 and not +1.

      As now you are jumping on the gun thinking that person who does not have a facebook, has 5.75 person between him and anyone else who has or does not have facebook account.

      a) Either you don't understand why he thinks he should add the +1, or
      b) You're trolling, or
      c) You just re-read what you wrote, remembered what averages are, and had a facepalm moment.
      I'm not sure which it is, though.

      He's not saying that there are always 5.74 people between a non-fb-user and anybody else. He's just saying that, given a non-fb-user, we can use one of his friends (which, I admit, he may not have any of)) with an fb account to be, on an average, within 4.74 of another fb user. It might be that for specific cases the actual number (being an integer) is ore than 5.74 or less than 5.74. Let us say there's an average of 1.26 people between a person without an fb account and one with. So we get 6 degrees of separation. :) :P (What was that law about making up stats on the spot?)

      Also, you gave a specific example, which doesn't count when it comes to Statistics. For every dropout who became a millionaire, how many do you think are starving now? Would you use a specific example of a homeless dropout or a millionaire dropout to justify remaining in or dropping out of college?

  5. Incorrect conclusions by ThePeices · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "They can now confidently say that the average degree of separation between any two humans is 4.74, not six as previously claimed by various entities."

    Wrong.

    They can confidently say that the average degree of separation between any two humans on facebook is 4.74.
    Not only that, but "various entities" never claimed that the value was six for facebook account holders, they claimed 6 degrees of separation between all people.
    The authors incorrectly assumed that every human has a facebook account.

  6. Not exactly. by raehl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The old value is that no person is more than 6 degrees of separation from ANY OTHER PERSON, period. So, randomly pick any person on the planet, and you should be able to get to that person with no more than 5 intervening people.

    An *AVERAGE* of 4.74 doesn't say anything about a 6-person maximum.

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    paintball