It's a Small World After All

I know personally I have experienced the “small world” effect often. You find someone who knows the same people you do out of hundreds of possibilities. Northeastern is a large school, yet I have had people ask me if I know someone and I have. These unknown ties exist all over social networks, but it comes back to the question – so what? I think this phenomenon goes back to some of the original material covered in this class about how social networks evolve. If I am meeting a stranger with no ties, I am going to be hesitant about the person. But if I find out that this person is actually good friends with my cousin, then my degree of trust and interest in forming a relationship increases. It also helps with triad closure in a nontraditional sense. Generally, the common tie introduces the two nodes that don’t know each other. The small world effect forms that triad closure without the central person being present. The central node still plays a role in the closure, but by simply knowing the individual, the relationship is more likely to form. Sometimes the effect shows itself by a common location rather than person, but the familiarity gives people a sense of relatedness. Whether a mutual friend or a common location, the sudden connection gives a basis for a conversation to start and a tie to form.

The small world effect can connect two people through a common individual or it can be how few hops it would take to get to say a Nigerian king. I think that these relationships, while interesting, hold less value in most social networks. As I mentioned in class, one of my friends was in a very small, never released, local movie, but she had a Kevin Bacon number of two. Since I am one degree removed from her, I have a Bacon number of three – but what good does that do? I don’t think if I ever needed to reach Kevin Bacon I could use these ties to suddenly have access to the movie star and have him hold any validity in what I had to say. In this respect I don’t think getting that far removed has any effect although it is a fun fact. I also don’t think that if Kevin Bacon became obese it would have any effect on me, but I could be wrong!