With the emergence of new social media the gap between people seem to shrink. We share more and more about ourselves with each other over the internet and gossip has in many cases moved online. Keeping our social networks online allows us to keep track and in touch with more than the theoretical cognitive limit that we can have according to Dunbar’s number (even if we may not have a ‘stable social relationship’ with most of them).
Another interesting aspect of when clusters of people in this size form is the effect it may have on a social scale. One example of a group’s altered properties compared to individuals is the Birthday paradox. An example of how this paradox works is that if one takes 36 random persons and researches if two of them share the same birthday the chance of that is not ~10% (36 persons & 365days) but closer to 90%. This is due to the number of increased combination’s that come with a larger group of people.
Another interesting theory to measure connections people have with each other is the six degrees of seperation. This theory claims that every person in the world knows another person through at the most six connections of “friends of friends”. This amplifies that we are much closer each other then what we normally perceive. Twitter has only four degrees of seperation, which partly explains why news travel so fast there.
Keep connecting with each other and enhance this social game we all play!
