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Hello dear readers! I think many have seen a message on the social network Facebook, for example, that a wallet was found or lost, and the author wants to check the rule of 6 handshakes, which says that we know absolutely any person in this world who is separated from us by no more six levels of communication. It was this meaning that our ancestors introduced, forming the saying that the world is small.
A bit of history
To completely simplify this scheme, I will explain with an example. Remember the series «Breaking Bad»? There is an interesting point about the fact that the lawyer knows a guy who knows another guy who is needed. While the theory has not yet been formed, it was first written by the Hungarian Karinti Frides around 1929. He jokingly shared the idea in the story «Links of the Chain» that all people on the planet are interconnected, regardless of whether they are famous or from an ordinary simple family.
Research psychologists
In 1969, psychologist Stanley Milgram, along with his colleague Jeffrey Traveros, decided to investigate this hypothesis and conduct an experiment. To do this, they needed a complete stranger, whom they decided to find with the help of people who could know his «hatted» acquaintances and friends. Randomly, the choice fell on a broker from Massachusetts, who worked in Boston.
Stanley and Jeffrey, according to some sources, prepared 160 letters, and according to others — 300, and sent them to different residents of the United States. These letters requested that they, after writing their contact details, forward the envelope to some person who may be close to the specified broker either professionally or geographically, for example, also living in Boston or knowing his relatives in Massachusetts.
It is only important that this person to whom they planned to send was either a relative or a friend, but not a random stranger. And while the envelopes made their journey, they gradually acquired new names. Those who knew about the experiment were of the opinion that it would take a long time to complete the process, and that the letters would go through at least 100 hands before reaching the person in question. In the end, 60 letters reached the addressee.
And after Milgram analyzed the entire list of names indicated by the people participating in the experiment, he realized that the envelopes had time to visit mostly 5-6 people, after which they ended up with the broker. That is, the theory of six handshakes was indeed confirmed. Afterward, Stanley noticed that three people’s names were on more than 30 envelopes. One of them is a clothing salesman from the shop next to which the broker lived, the other two are his colleagues.
That is, they had the widest circle of acquaintances, thanks to which the study ended successfully. Later, Malcolm Glaudell, a journalist from Canada, coined the term «unifier» to describe such individuals who can create connections.
Microsoft Research
In 2006, Microsoft became interested in this theory and decided to conduct their own research. Thanks to modern technology, it has become possible to calculate the average indicator mathematically. Corporation employees processed whole billions of messages, literally in one month, and came to the conclusion that two completely different and unfamiliar people are really separated by 6 so-called handshakes. And to be more precise, the average value was equal to 6,6.
Facebook-powered research
But the experiments did not end there, taking the well-known social network Facebook as a basis, in 2011 scientists from the University of Milan received a slightly different figure — only 4,74. And indeed, every year the circle of acquaintances of every person on the planet increases, because it has become popular to add as friends even those people with whom they once crossed somewhere, and then, they didn’t really have time to get to know each other.
And the fact that in a rare house there is no telephone or computer with Internet access allows anyone to communicate even with those who are currently on the other side of the globe. There is even a service that helps to establish a connection between users and developments are underway to organize large-scale communication between the entire population of the planet.
In principle, the process has already begun, if we count and analyze the number of sites for dating, training and just communication, where it is possible to correspond not only with fellow countrymen, but also with representatives of other countries.
And sociologists from the University of Columbia staged a whole quest. Having collected about a thousand volunteers, they, having provided only superficial information, such as the name, place of residence and occupation of 20 people, asked them to find them on the condition that they use only e-mail. Do not believe it, but literally with the help of 4 messages, the first «secret» person was discovered.
The theory of 6 handshakes in the film «Yolki» is very interestingly presented. It is light, cheerful and touching, and tells how residents from different parts of Russia help one child from an orphanage. Do you know how? They convey his request to each other, which is addressed to the President. And this is not so easy to do, if only because no one knows him personally.
Algorithm
I propose to play the game and conduct your own experiment to make sure that you are really connected through acquaintances with completely different people on the planet, even with Donald Trump himself or Alla Pugacheva with Timati. So what is required:
1. Use any social network, let’s say VK or Facebook.
2. In the search, write any name and surname, just think of it.
3. You will be offered a list of people on request, choose the one you like first. You can even take a chance and click on a stranger.
4. When you go to his page, visit the list of friends and click on the very first one.
5. Now repeat the above steps until you find someone you have as a friend. Even if you have to go through 7-8 pages, I think that the game can still be considered successful.
Conclusion
And that’s all for today, dear readers! Finally, I suggest you do your bit to reduce the levels so that connections are found much faster. And how to do this, you can learn from the article «14 rules for the effective use of networking.»
I also recommend reading an article from which you will find out how much the human brain works.
Strength and inspiration to you!