Facebook and Yahoo have teamed up yet again and this time they are testing a social experiment which is inspired from the iconic 1960s-era. This experiment had displayed that only six degrees of separation are there amongst most of the people in the world. Population of the world has been increasing and has in fact doubled up almost since ‘Small World’ experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram helped people visualize interconnecting with each and every other creature in a new way. This experiment had many flaws but still was quite a famous one. The change for now has not been for the population only, but even the online social network advent has changed, especially Facebook. This is an important element which would be used by the researchers.
Yahoo and Facebook’s social scientists have started hooking in the huge digital network from this week onwards. They plan to know as to on an average, how many connections would be required for one to pass on a specific message to someone whom they do not know. This is not restricted to a country circle, but all over the world.
There are questions going on which relate to the degree of separation between people wherein one questions the time frame of the Facebook-Yahoo experiment. Milgram had concluded basing an assumption on small number of letters which make it towards the specified ‘target’. This left room for one to doubt the findings of Milgram. However Small World experiment’s latest version which is making rounds on Facebook can be helpful to clear off these doubts.
Yahoo’s principal research scientist, Duncan Watts emphasized that these doubts could not have been cleared until very recently. He termed the achievement as a milestone. This experiment is being led by Watts.
Facebook’s chief data scientist, Cameron Marlow said that averagely a member of Facebook has 130 friends on Facebook and its average count has gone up to triple in the last two years. Watt however said that the people actually don’t know as to how many connections are there for them via their friends and therefore the importance of testing how does the effectiveness of the communication for a message transmission is, from a friend to friend. He even said that closeness of people connected need to be tested.
One can be a part of this experiment by participating with their Facebook accounts. It would be determined at http://smallworld.sandbox.yahoo.com. Watt said that one would see the results publish as a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Marlow however said that these results could be applied to Facebook’s business. He said that this separation degree would be either between just individuals or even between commercial brands and people. These brands usually have their ads running on Facebook. Marlow was quoted saying, “Facebook enables the diffusion of important messages, a big part of which is our advertising platform.” In 1960s, when these experiments were carried out, around 3.5 billion people were recorded by Milgram.
UC Berkeley’s professor emeritus of psychology, Phil Cowan said that now it has been accepted on a wide scale that Milgram’s research had quite a few potential flaws. He continued saying that the Facebook-Yahoo study would have a validity if they consider getting representatives who are accurate for general population. The reason for this is that the crows using these social networks are basically of the young generation.
Watt concluded saying that even though the world’s population is approximately 6.8 billion, the experiment would not incorporate everyone, but it fairly includes a size which would be double of the population of the U.S. If this is accomplished, then it would be more or less true.