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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?
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!
Yes and naturally the NSA will consider that a justification to listen to all your calls and read all your e-mails.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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.
Philosopher (n) - a wise person who is calm and rational; someone who lives a life of reason with equanimity
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.
what are these "friends" they keep talking about?
"...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.
Somebody claims that an AVERAGE of 3.5 compared to an UPPER LIMIT of 6.0 is "new research" ?
How do I math ?
You're hurting the World.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Anyone can be linked to Monty Python.
Adolf Hitler was in Triumph des Willens with Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl was in Games of the XXI Olympiad with Greg Louganis
Greg Louganis was in Touch Me with Bonnie Root
Bonnie Root was in Rails & Ties with Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon was in The Big Picture with John Cleese
Hitler -> Bacon -> Monty Python
--
Madonna -> Bacon -> Monty Python
Madonna was in Shanghai Surprise with Sean Penn
Sean Penn was in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon was in Novocaine with Keith David
Keith David was in Hollywood Homicide with Eric Idle
---
John Wayne -> Bacon -> Monthy Python
John Wayne was in The Longest Day with Robert Wagner
Robert Wagner was in Wild Things with Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon was in My Dog Skip with Diane lane
Diane Lane was in Chaplin with Kevin Kline
Kevin Kline was in A Fish Called Wanda with Michael Palin and John Cleese
The threshold for being associated with a terrorist and thus a target for enhanced data collection and investigation was revealed by Snowden to be 3. So now the average Facebook user is 3.5 degrees away from ISIS.
I follow Snowden on Twitter, which makes me one degree away from an active investigation.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This adds only one degree of separation. The village shopkeeper has interactions with one or two highly connected merchants in the outside world. So by degree three your neighbourhood is already in the tens of thousands, even for "highly isolated" communities. By degree six or seven you are likely in the billions.
I you have my back! ZERO-DEGREES of!
I like back bacon.
As far as facebook goes, the point of 6 degrees is a hypothetical favor network. A friend is someone you can aska fvor from. maybe a small favor like an introduction. that's why the concept of degrees of separation makes sense. Facebook freinds are not freinds. In some case facbook can be useful for tracing the spread of social disease however.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Yes the hops part was always interesting.
:)
"Three degrees of separation: breaking down the NSA's 'hops' surveillance method" ( 29 October 2013)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
You may already be a winner in NSA’s “three-degrees” surveillance sweepstakes! (Jul 19, 2013 )
http://arstechnica.com/informa...
Australia is even trying it with images.
Facial recognition: Privacy advocates raise concern over 'creepy' system Government says will enhance national security (10 Sep 2015)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
The number of hops the security forces and mil felt comfortable connecting under collect it all fits with the ~3 hop news
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"