okay, so i’m reading this piece in new scientist (i know, i know, that’s a bit geeky) and there’s this recap of a huge 2003 study at columbia university demonstrating the statistical validity (sorta) regarding the “six degrees of separation” theory…basically, you can now allay social status anxiety by comfortably disclosing to people that you’re “pretty closely connected to (insert celebrity name here)”..here’s the summary:

test purpose: prove that everybody in the world can be linked through six social ties
targets (randomly chosen): sample: professor in america, australian policeman, veterinarian in norway (plus 15 others)
participants: 60 thousand people across 166 countries

methodology: participants were assigned to one of the 18 targets. they were asked to contact that person by sending email to people they already knew and considered potentially ‘closer’ to the target. also, participants sent an email to the research team explaining who they chose to email and why, which revealed the kinds of social bonds most likely to help a message reach the target.

results and sample conclusions:
1 - researchers found that in most cases, it took between five and seven emails to contact the target
2 - most successful bonds were work-related
3 - messages were also more likely to reach the target if they went to someone of the same sex (while en route)
4- email is not a compelling or different medium resulting in a variation on this theory
5 - message relay did not rely on ‘hubs’ or central clusters of ‘highly influential or prominent people’ (which runs counter to a mathematical theory that suggests the exact opposite, that hubs are critical as conduits of such communications
6- researchers might be using this type of model to study, for example, how infectious diseases spread rapidly across large networks of people, et al

(in fact, some nerdy history here: a guy named stanley milgram did a similar experiment in the late 60’s through the us postal system by asking people to send a package by mail to one hundred people chosen at random)

…says a lot (in a bad long term way) for the many online social networking players who believe that their ability to create a ‘hub’ is central to the success of relationship mining…plus, we all knew how to make these connections long before the internet even existed (in my fam, it was jewish geography).

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