Facebook, Yahoo to Test ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ Theory

Yokel is tapping Facebook's big social network to test the old "six degrees of separation" theory. Information technology's about time.

The theory holds that whatsoever deuce people in the world force out be connected through a chain of six acquaintances. Harvard sociologist Stanley Milgram tested the idea in 1967, when helium willy-nilly hand-picked 300 masses in Omaha, Neb., to effort to deliver a message to a stockbroker in Boston. The 60 people WHO completed the task required roughly six steps on the average. Playwright John Guare popularized the word "Six Degrees of Separation" in a 1990 wager and 1993 film that followed.

In Yahoo's examine, dubbed the "Small World Experiment," participants will use their Facebook contacts to send a message to a randomly selected target. Facebook's membership exceeded 750 million as of July, and then the try size is possibly large. According to ZDNet, the results will be publicized in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Unfortunately, the project seems tormented from the start because it relies on willing participants at every mistreat of the chain. The first person in the chain must sign for the project and agree to offer a whole bundle of person-to-person information to Yahoo. After receiving a target, the user must select another Facebook friend to pass the content on. That friend will blue-ribbon another, and then on.

Here's the content that users send to their friends at each step in the chain:

"Help test the 6 degrees of separation hypothesis by trying to reach [target name and occupation] through a chain of Facebook friends. Click the link above to continue the chain."

The whole exercise risks look like string letter spam to anyone WHO doesn't know what's exit on. It also relies on people to cull who they conceive has the best chance of wise the target, when in reality the shortest route to the target may non be obvious to the player.

Ideally, Facebook's six degrees of separation would instead be tested aside algorithm, which would pick ii random people and scan through every of their connections to see if a link bum Be established in six steps OR less. Acknowledged, I suffer no estimation what kind of computing resources this would require, and chances are some users would get all tippy near privacy violations.

That said, if Yahoo's experiment successfully proves the theory, an algorithmic screen might not be indispensable. But I'm dissipated the theory will remain debatable for years to do.

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Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/482017/facebook_yahoo_to_test_six_degrees_of_separation_theory.html

Posted by: petersonhypect1953.blogspot.com

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