The six degrees of separation theory

Since the dawn of humanity, people have needed to group together in order to survive. From the family groups of prehistory to the current megacities with millions of people living in them, our history and development as a species has been due to the collective effort to survive and thrive. And in this effort, each and every one of us weaves our own network of contacts, who in turn have their own. And today, in which we live in a globalized and interconnected society through networks, it is not impossible to come to think that we could actually get in touch with anyone.

This thought has generated that some researchers have generated different theories that try to reflect the possibility that in reality we are all interconnected. One of the theories that have been used in this regard is the six degrees of separation theory, which we will talk about next.

• Related article: "What is social psychology?"

The theory of the six degrees of separation: origin and basic idea

The so-called theory of the six degrees of separation is a theory that states that anyone can be interconnected with anyone else from anywhere in the world.

through a chain of contacts that does not exceed six people, thus existing only five points of union between the two.

Although it seems like an idea typical of a globalized world like that of today's society, the truth is that it is a theory that originates from the proposal for the first time in 1929, its author being the writer Frigyes Karinthy and appearing in his publication Chains (chains, in English).

The original idea makes sense and is viable: we meet a large number of people throughout our day to day (proposing later authors such as Watts around a hundred), and these in turn to many others, who in turn will also have many others. In the long run, the number of interconnected people would grow exponentially making it increasingly easier for us to find contacts in common with the objective subject over time, and over time if we wanted to send him a message it would be enough to follow said chain.

social hotspots

However, the fact that only six stops are necessary is more difficult to prove. The exact number of "jumps" was the subject of arduous debate until 1967, when the well-known psychologist Stanley Milgram (the same of the Milgram experiment of obedience to authority), carried out a series of experiments trying to solve the unknown, in what was called “the small world problem”.

In one of them, Milgram gave different people at random a series of letters for them to read. were delivered to an unknown person located in Massachusetts, solely through their acquaintances of him. Although many of the letters never arrived, among other things because many participants did not pass them on or their contacts did not continue trying, in the cases in which they did, an average of six were counted. Steps.

Milgram's experiments in this regard might be unrepresentative, but Subsequently, other investigations were carried out. (and some relatively recent ones, like one in 2001) that seem to show that the number of hops required, though not absolute, is still on average around six hops.

• You may be interested in: "The Milgram Experiment: the danger of obeying authority"

Theory in the information society: six steps (or clicks) away

Time has passed since the theory was first proposed, and multiple social and technological advances have appeared since then. Among them we can find the emergence of the Internet and social media, which facilitate interaction between people from all over the world. Thus, today it may be even easier to establish contact between people who are far apart and different from each other.

In addition, the use of these networks allows not only contact, but also the calculation of the separation between people: LinkedIn or Facebook are examples of this. However, the data obtained show that the theory of the six degrees of separation may have evolved over time, and the distance may be much less today. For example, a 2011 study by the Universitá degli Studi di Milano and various Cornell researchers show that the distance between two people on Facebook is 3.74 people.

Other difficulties

We cannot fail to indicate that despite the fact that this theory may be relatively supported, it must be taken into account that there are a large number of variables that they can interfere with the specific number of jumps: it is not the same to come into contact with someone from the same city as from another continent, or who has another language.

The difficulty will also vary depending on whether the person is more or less popularly known, or whether or not they share a hobby or a job. Another problem is found in the media: today we can generate more diverse contacts thanks to new technologies, but those who do not have them do not enjoy this option.

Finally, it is different to contact someone in a city than in a town with few inhabitants, and if we go to the extreme we can find much more difficulty in contact a subject in situations such as war, extreme poverty or famine. Or if one of the two extremes (the one who initiates the search for contact or the target of this) is a member of an indigenous tribe or a culture isolated from the rest of the world

The utility of this theory

It is possible that reading this theory may seem interesting on an informative level, but the truth is that it is not just a curiosity: it is useful in multiple sectors.

One of them is the work networks in the business world, in such a way that it allows to study how to form portfolios of clients and contacts that can facilitate them. It could also be applied in marketing and advertising, when taking into account the formation of chains of contacts when promoting the sale of a service or product. Word of mouth acquaintance can also be linked to this factor.

Finally, we can also find the theory of the six degrees of separation useful at an educational level: it can be used and taken into account for the transmission of prosocial values, prevention programs (for example sexual education, drug prevention or prevention of gender violence) or information.

Bibliographic references:

• Watts, D.J. (2006). Six degrees of separation. Network science in the age of access. Editorial Paidos.