Today sociologists reckon we each average 300 acquaintances and may know between 200 and 5,000 individuals by name. Such societies were highly interdependent and tightly bonded and thus everyone could know everyone else-everyone was connected by a single handshake, or one degree of separation. To get a picture of the mechanisms at work, let's look at a few unusual populations.įirst, take the case of a Pacific island some 500 years ago with a stable population of around 3,000 people who had arrived by canoe several generations back and since that time had no outside contact. It is simple to understand at a basic level but gets rapidly more complex as we delve deeper. The reality, though, is there's absolutely nothing amazing about it. Journalists across the planet have variously trumpeted the "amazing" fact that any two individuals are separated by no more than six acquaintances. COMMENTARY-The past year has seen the resurgence of the "six degrees of separation" theory.
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