Facebook Knocks "Six Degrees of Separation" Down a Few Notches (i-programmer.info)

mikejuk writes: Six degrees of separation is the, already well established, idea that any individual is connected to any other via six network nodes. New research has discovered that the average between Facebook users is just three and a half: "We know that people are more connected today than ever before. Over the past five years, the global Facebook community has more than doubled in size. Today we're announcing that during that same time period, the degrees of separation between a typical pair of Facebook users has continued to decrease to 3.57 degrees, down from 3.74 degrees in 2011. This is a significant reflection of how closely connected the world has become." This may all be true and Facebook makes us better connected, but it leaves the question of the quality of the connections open. Are Facebook friends anything like real friends?

Comments

Re: I AM KEVIN BACON!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. So now everyone is less than four unknown friendings away from everyone else. We're now more connected with random people we don't know than ever!

Re: I AM KEVIN BACON!

[DarkOx]

Yes and naturally the NSA will consider that a justification to listen to all your calls and read all your e-mails.

Selection Bias

[ScottyLad]

I know of very few people in my social circle who have a Facebook account. I'm sure people who use Facebook will know few people who don't.

Facebook friends aren't real friends

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody on Facebook knows this. And because of this we've got way too many friends on Facebook, at least compared to the real work. That in turn means we seem more connected, making the degree of separation in the graph go down. But none of that is real; if you'd only count your actual friends on Facebook, the degree of separation would be much higher, because we'd have a lot less friends per person.

Re:Facebook friends aren't real friends

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem.

I have a few Real friends, going back to High School, decades back.
I have a few Internet email Friends, also going decades back, back to the USENET days. We have never met in person, but if we did, we would get along ducky, I'm sure.

I know nobody on Facebook. Being a "Friend" on Facebook obscenes the very concept of being a "Friend", because the sole purpose of "Friendship" there is to make profit out of said "Friendship". And nothing more.
I abhor the the Facebook concept of "Friendship".

Tomorrow morning, I shall go sailing out on the Bay with Friends, recently met. Recently met Friends to be sure, but still Friends. We shall ignore all of that Football shallowness; we shall have the other shallows and deeps to amuse ourselves.
Using Google Maps, and some old newspaper accounts, I have found _another_ Shipwreck, not on the NOAA or USGS Charts, but still visible at low tide.
With Lifting Keel lifted, we can sail into knee deep water, and have a look, and then sail off again as the tide rises.

The "friends" numbers game.

[geekmux]

"...Are Facebook friends anything like real friends?"

When people literally have thousands of "friends" on Facebook, I'd say the answer is rather obvious.

Doubly so when you consider celebrity status is partly derived from how big certain numbers are online, which tends to question the reality of the whole damn thing.

Stop using Facebook

[koan]

You're hurting the World.