Concept Research: 6 Degree's of Separation

The concept behind our representation of hyperbolic space was inspired by the notion, "Six Degree's of Separation" and how it applies to social networking.

Once we had decided upon the overall concept that would inspire the context for our hyperbolic model we researched various sources to find out more about the theory behind the, "Six Degree's of Separation".

Social Networking

Social Networking: social network service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities.

Social network services are generally web based and found online these include mediums such as facebook, friendster, Hi5, Twitter, Four Squares, Springform and so forth.

Whilst some of the largest social networks were founded based on the notion of ditigizing real world connections, many networks focus on catergories of similar interests such as books and music to motherhood or sports.

These networks acts as means to both provide services and a virtual community for individual with shared interests and hobbies.

The popular website lastfm.com, provided an web community for music lovers who are able to see who else likes the same bands, songs and who is attending what concert. The website connects with each users music players and "scrobbles" what they are listening to online.

• Social networks are predominantly used as a communication tool between friends, co workers, family and on a smaller scale between students and teachers
• Often users can use these sites to stay in contact with overseas relatives sharing photos and sending messages easily
• Since many students are members of a wide-range of popular social networking sites, teachers have started to adopt the trend and try to use it to their advantage

The notion of “Six Degrees of Separation” can be applied to social networking as recently ---- students preformed an experiment …..

Six degrees of separation (also referred to as the "Human Web") refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in six or less steps.

Diagram that shows the “web” that is formed through 6 degrees of separation

visual representation of the "human web"

After WWI Statist theories on optimal design of cities, traffic flows, neighborhoods and demographics were popular

These conjectures were expanded in 1930's by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy, who published a volume of short stories titled "Everything is Different".

In this collection a particular piece titled "Chain-Links"investigated the many issues that would captivate future generations of mathematicians, sociologists, and physicists within the field of network theory

in abstract, conceptual, and fictional terms.

The overall message was that, "Due to technological advances in communications and travel, friendship networks could grow larger and span greater distances".

He particularly believed that, "...the modern world was 'shrinking' due to ever-increasing connectedness of human beings."

He posited that despite great physical distances between the globe's individuals, the growing density of human networks made the actual social distance far smaller.

Social networking medium accelerate the rate at which our various social groups or circles grow and connect.

Given our concept we decided that creating a hyperbolic space model using crochet would be the most suitable method to illustrate the "Six Degree's of Separation" perpetuated by social networking.