Six degrees of separation is the idea that two people can be connected through a short chain of personal acquaintances. The phrase is a shorthand for the small-world effect, not proof that every pair of people is separated by six links or fewer.
In a chain, links count the relationships along the path; intermediaries are the people between the two endpoints. Those counts are not the same, and neither should be confused with a network’s average path length or its maximum distance.
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What Milgram’s experiment found
In Stanley Milgram’s well-known chain-letter study, people in Nebraska were asked to forward letters toward a Boston stockbroker, passing them only to someone they knew personally. Some letters reached the target. M. E. J. Newman’s review reports an average of about six steps for the successful chains, while cautioning that the experiment was poorly controlled and had sources of error. [Source]
The finding supports the broad idea that some acquaintance chains can be short. It does not establish a precise average for all randomly selected people, let alone a universal maximum. The study’s boundaries, what counted as knowing someone, participants’ choices, and chains that failed to reach the target all affect what can be concluded. The sources reviewed here do not establish a current, universal measurement of acquaintance distances across the world’s population.
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What “small world” means in network science
A small-world network has paths that are short relative to the size of the network. It may also have strong local clustering: a person’s friends are often connected to one another. A small number of shortcuts between clusters can substantially shorten paths without making every connection random. [Newman’s review]
In their 1998 account of research by Duncan Watts and Steven Strogatz, Cornell described analyses of film actors, the western U.S. power grid, and the neural network of C. elegans. These are examples of particular networks, not evidence that every human pair has a fixed maximum distance. Strogatz put the model’s point this way: “The alarming and less obvious point is how few short cuts are needed to make the world small.” [Cornell account]
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Acquaintance chains and actor links compared
Popular actor-link games resemble the idea of short paths, but they use a different kind of connection. An actor can be linked to another actor through a shared film or television credit; that does not mean the two know each other personally.
| Example | What counts as a link | What the result can show |
|---|---|---|
| Milgram’s chain-letter study | Passing a letter to someone personally known | Some chains to a particular target succeeded in that study; its reported average and limitations do not establish a universal human-network distance. |
| Actor-link game | Shared credits in a selected film or television database | Paths within that database and its chosen filters, not acquaintance links among all people. |
| Small-world network analysis | Connections defined for a specific network | Whether paths are short relative to that network’s size; results depend on its boundaries and definition of a link. |
A 2006 National Academies Press chapter reported that 770,269 actors in the movie database it examined were linkable, and 770,187 of them were within six steps of Kevin Bacon; it also reported an average of about 2.95 steps among those linkable actors. These are historical figures for that database, not a current actor census or a measure of human acquaintance distances. [National Academies Press chapter]
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- Polish Release, cover may contain Polish text/markings. The disk DOES NOT have English audio and subtitles.
The Oracle of Bacon lets users select sources such as movies, TV shows, and TV movies, and choose role types including actors, directors, producers, and writers. Its output depends on the database and filters selected. [Oracle of Bacon]
How the phrase entered popular culture
John Guare’s 1990 play Six Degrees of Separation helped bring the expression into everyday use. That cultural history is separate from the evidence for short paths in social networks. [Smithsonian Audiovisual Media Preservation Initiative]
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FAQ
Does six degrees mean everyone is six people away from everyone else?
No. It is a popular shorthand based on the idea of short paths between people. The classic chain-letter study does not prove a six-link limit for every pair, and the research reviewed here does not establish a universal current measurement.
Is it six people total or six people in between?
It depends on whether someone is counting links or intermediaries. In network terminology, a path length counts the links along the path. Intermediaries are the people between the starting and ending people, so the number of intermediaries is not the same as the number of links.
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What did Milgram’s chain-letter study show?
Some letters sent from participants in Nebraska reached a Boston stockbroker through personal acquaintances. Newman’s review reports about six steps on average among successful chains, but also describes methodological weaknesses; that result is not a universal average or maximum.
Is the Kevin Bacon game evidence for six degrees between people?
No. It traces shared credits in a bounded entertainment database. Its links are not personal acquaintances, and its results depend on the database and selected filters.
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