While the conventional wisdom usually holds that all people of the world are separated by no more than six degrees of separation, a survey released earlier this week by Facebook in conjunction with an Italian university shows a lower number. According to the data raised millions of its members, the people of the known social network are separated by an average of 4.74 friends.
According to the website, the current 721 million active users (over 10% of the entire world population, as they themselves point out) make up 69 billion connections, which year after year have reduced the distance between individuals. A similar survey conducted in 2008 showed that people were on average separated by 5.28 people.
One of the reasons that promotes this "approach" is that Facebook allows people can make connections with people with similar interests, ages and tastes, regardless of their location, the researchers found. So much so that people from the same country, the average distance between two users is only three friends.
Other data released by Facebook show that 50% of Facebook users have fewer than 100 friends, and only 10% have less than 10 friends on their profiles, while all users are on average 190 friends.
Just as a curiosity in its early days, the social network Orkut profiles used to display on the degrees of separation between its users, features that silently left the scene when the service began to gain popularity.
According to the website, the current 721 million active users (over 10% of the entire world population, as they themselves point out) make up 69 billion connections, which year after year have reduced the distance between individuals. A similar survey conducted in 2008 showed that people were on average separated by 5.28 people.
One of the reasons that promotes this "approach" is that Facebook allows people can make connections with people with similar interests, ages and tastes, regardless of their location, the researchers found. So much so that people from the same country, the average distance between two users is only three friends.
Other data released by Facebook show that 50% of Facebook users have fewer than 100 friends, and only 10% have less than 10 friends on their profiles, while all users are on average 190 friends.
Just as a curiosity in its early days, the social network Orkut profiles used to display on the degrees of separation between its users, features that silently left the scene when the service began to gain popularity.
