The idea of six degrees of separation was expressed by Frigyes Karinthy in 1929 and for the past few decades, it has been part of our consciousness with respect to how the world is shrinking.
However, more 80 years later, I find it surprising that no one has revised the degree of six downwards.
Today Facebook, which has close to 10% of the world’s population, is by far the largest common identity possessed by such a vast set of people. The Gmails, Yahoos and Hotmails of the world are lagging behind by quite some distance (and they also don’t allow people to connect in the true sense – you can’t browse and look for users that you can then interact with).
I do believe that today’s degree of separation would probably be 4, or at best 3 for some people. But for the world at large, probably 4. Four degrees of separation would mean that you could contact anyone in the world, with the help of three other people, keeping in mind that one must only create links to and then, in turn, through them again to those who are their own personal acquaintances.
And as strange as it sounds, you will realize that in today’s world, the chances of you being able to contact Barack Obama are probably higher than contacting someone who lives in rural Africa without too many social friends.
And that is the irony of the reducing degrees of separation – the ones that are world-famous are more accessible than the normal anonymous people that inhabit our world.