TY - JOUR
T1 - We are so close, less than 4 degrees separating you and me!
AU - Daraghmi, Eman Yasser
AU - Yuan, Shyan-Ming
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - Nowadays, the glory of social networking sites is unprecedented. Thus, we are so close; the world is even smaller than you thought; a friend of your friend probably knows a friend of others friend; Facebook shrunk the gap between us. The six degrees of separation theory proposed in 1967 stated that we are all just six degrees of separation apart. This paper addresses the research problem of identifying the degree of separation from a different viewpoint by considering not only the degree of separation between two normal-persons or famous-persons, but also between two persons with very rare-special features. We re-evaluate and extend the six degrees of separation theory by using a real social searching Facebook tool "We R So Close". Experiments were performed on Facebook platform; and the graph database was used to store the collected data. Results add a new phase to the research that cemented the phrase "six degrees of separation", it reported that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people no matter who they are even with rare-special features, i.e. those who work in rare jobs, is not six but 3.9.
AB - Nowadays, the glory of social networking sites is unprecedented. Thus, we are so close; the world is even smaller than you thought; a friend of your friend probably knows a friend of others friend; Facebook shrunk the gap between us. The six degrees of separation theory proposed in 1967 stated that we are all just six degrees of separation apart. This paper addresses the research problem of identifying the degree of separation from a different viewpoint by considering not only the degree of separation between two normal-persons or famous-persons, but also between two persons with very rare-special features. We re-evaluate and extend the six degrees of separation theory by using a real social searching Facebook tool "We R So Close". Experiments were performed on Facebook platform; and the graph database was used to store the collected data. Results add a new phase to the research that cemented the phrase "six degrees of separation", it reported that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people no matter who they are even with rare-special features, i.e. those who work in rare jobs, is not six but 3.9.
KW - Facebook
KW - Graph database
KW - Six degrees of separation theory
KW - Small world experiment
KW - Special-rare features
KW - We are so close
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84885658826&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.chb.2013.09.014
DO - 10.1016/j.chb.2013.09.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84885658826
VL - 30
SP - 273
EP - 285
JO - Computers in Human Behavior
JF - Computers in Human Behavior
SN - 0747-5632
ER -