[To me, the raw "success" rate of this experiment --- one in 60 --- paints a picture of humanity which is at odds with the view presented in the opening paragraphs.....]
"We're all just an email away"
By Deborah Smith, Science Writer August 9, 2003
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A team from Columbia University, including two Australian researchers, asked volunteers around the globe to help relay a message to 18 people in 13 countries, including a policeman in Perth, a university professor in the United States, and an archival inspector in Estonia. Participants emailed the message to an acquaintance they thought might be closer to their assigned target, because they lived in the same country or had a similar job. More than 60,000 people from 166 countries took part, and in most cases, it only took between five and seven emails for contact to be made. The experiment has its origins in research done by an American social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in the 1960s. In a much smaller experiment he sent packages to a few hundred people in America to pass on to two targets, and found the average length of the social chains was six people. However, the hard evidence for the Milgram theory was lacking, something which inspired Duncan Watts, a Queensland-born scientist at Columbia, to carry out the email experiment. The results, published in the journal Science yesterday, found that it was a small world only for some. Professor Watts said: "In principle we're very connected. The paths exist and can be found. But how prepared you are to try to find them is very important." Of the more than 24,000 chains initiated, less than 400 reached their target because people lost interest. "That makes us look very disconnected," Professor Watts said. The message for people trying to use social ties to get on in the world was not to get bogged down in making the best connections possible, he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/08/1060145868869.html