A while ago we participated in an on-line project to test the small world
hypothesis -- the idea that people are connected by only six degrees of
separation.
Some of the results from that project have been published in the journal
Science. You can download a copy of the results here,
http://smallworld.columbia.edu/results.html and also examine the
methodology.
This study has, I think, some interesting implications, not just about
"social connectedness" but how one can use the internet and, Gasp!,
"self-selecting respondents" to do what seems to be valid social science
research, at least of a specific sort.
-t
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J. T. Johnson
Institute for Analytic Journalism
http://www.analyticjournalism.com505.577.6482(c) 505.473.9646 (h)
http://www.jtjohnson.com [hidden email]
"He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense."
-John McCarthy, Stanford University mathematician
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