A simple pattern links billions of people: just a few connections apart. New research suggests this may be an unavoidable feature of human networks.
Most people have experienced it. You mention a name, and someone responds, “I know someone who knows them.” Somehow, even in a world of billions, people are often linked by just a handful of connections. For decades, this idea has been summed up as “six degrees of separation.” Now, researchers say this pattern is not just a social curiosity. It may be an unavoidable outcome of how humans build relationships.
The concept became famous in 1967, when Harvard psychologist Stanley Milgram launched a simple but clever experiment. He mailed letters to randomly selected people in the Midwest, asking them to get the message to a specific individual in Boston. The catch was that they could only pass the letter to someone they knew personally, ideally someone who might be closer to the target.
Not every letter reached its destination. In fact, most did not. But the ones that did revealed something striking. On average, it took only about six steps, or “handshakes,” to connect the sender and recipient. This result gave rise to the idea that we live in a “small world” separated by roughly six degrees.
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