http://www.healthywealthynwise.com/article.asp?Article=5203

While browsing the internet I came across this article, and the title attracted my attention. Sadly, the article was not about Santa Claus nor the Easter Bunny, but it did analyze and attempt to debunk the six degrees idea. While the article does a good job exposing possible problems with the theory, its claims can be refuted by what we’ve learned in class.

In class we talked about the Small World Phenomenon and the Six Degrees of Separation. The concept of the Six Degrees of Separation originates from experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram in the 1960s. He set a target person somewhere in the United States, and told 100 other random people to try and get a letter to this person. The only catch is, these 100 people must send it through acquaintances whom are on a first name basis. The results of the experiment were startling, as Milgram found that the average number of steps passed was about six.

In the article, the author argues that though the it is true that the average number of steps taken is six, “the overwhelming majority of people in all of Milgram’s studies never got the material to the intended recipient at all!” He goes on to cite quantitative evidence that only 29% of the 217 starting chains were completed, and of those 64, the magic number of six was derived. He then argues that the other 71% of the population “were NOT CONNECTED AT ALL!” While the statistics he cites are legit, he neglected to take into consideration of the possibility of apathy in the participants. The fact that any two people in the United States may not be connected can only be one contributing factor in the 71%, many others may be too indolent or do not have the motivation to carry out this experiment.

In addition to the apathy experienced by the participants, the experiment is not designed to find the shortest possible path. The experiment that Milgram conducted utilizes a technique called tunneling, where each partcipant is only allowed to send one letter to his/her acquaintance. Even if each and every participant tried their best to carry on the message, there is no way for each individual to know the links connected to their acquaintance, hence the participant does not know the shortest path to the target.

The second half of his article seems to pertain more to the importance of networking skills in satisfying the six degrees of separation. Only through “reading, training and coaching can people develop their networking skills, and become part of the roughly 29% of people.” However, in class we proved that the existence of one random link connecting an individual to a network different from his could be the difference, and unless this link is non existent, there will always be a path connecting two individuals.

The last line of the article goes something like this: “As for the 71% of people who are not connected and yet still believe in the Six Degrees of Separation concept – keep the faith. You’ll always have Santa Claus.” and we will keep faith, as we are all connected to Santa Claus through that one single unique link, that allows us to be connected to everyone else.