Three (Maybe Four) Degrees of Seperation

Social networking has multiplied the number of connections people have and the number of channels they have to build networks. Thought the connections through these channels are more tenuous, there are far more of them.

Surfing through friend’s profiles on Facebook, I was struck by the numbers of high profile people that were connected to my friends and friends-of-friends. It’s no longer six degrees we are separated by, but three, maybe four, from any person on the planet.

Is it more valuable to have a chain of six strong links or be connected by three weak links? I suspect three links is more useful because in a short chain the odds of finding that you are connected to some person is far higher.  Connections six degrees separated are all but useless and the social capital that remains after negotiating that chain has dropped to approximately zero. So finding the person, no matter how tenuous the connection, is probably more useful overall.