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Are you six degrees away from catching the coronavirus?
You don’t know where your friend’s friend has been, and other theories that link all the humans on this planet of 7.8 billion.
At this point, you’ve either caught the virus, or you know someone who has. If, like me, you haven’t been infected, then, like me, you’re probably wondering how long before Covid-19 makes its way to you. The idea seems considerably less macabre when maths and networking theories get involved.
Start with the basics: How many people do you know? Research from 2013 (using social-security number connections) suggests that the average American knows about 600 people. This includes everyone — close family, friends, business associates, the barista and that douche who ghosted them in 2016. But any Indian who’s hosted a wedding reception, or whose chacha used two mobile phones in the 2000s, will tell you that the average Indian likely knows a lot more people.
Facebook users typically have 338 friends. On LinkedIn, users make 930 connections on average. Your mileage may vary, but who cares? The virus doesn’t spread on Messenger. It’s the near and dear ones with whom you’re more likely to come in contact, and let your guard (and mask) down.
In the 1990s, anthropologist Robin Dunbar established that we can maintain meaningful social relationships with not more than 150 people. Most of us, he believes, have an inner circle of five people, to whom we devote 40% of our social time; and another 10, with whom we spend another 20%. Our 15 dearest would be a small enough number to stay safe within.
Widen the circle and things get messy. In 1929, Frigyes Karinthy’s short story, Chain-Links, put forth a theory that has fascinated every generation since. The Hungarian author suggested that each of us is connected to any other living human — Trump, a Botswanan DJ, Virat Kohli — via just five people, forming six degrees of separation. Simply put, if you know 45 people and each is connected to 45 more, by the sixth counting, you are connected to 8.30 billion people, allowing for Earth’s 7.8 billion humans and spare change.
The idea has inspired a play, a book and a film. Real-life experiments to test it have had mixed success. But online, networked databases showcase the breadth of human connections better. Visit oracleofbacon.org to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The game hilariously posits that the Footloose actor is connected to every other Hollywood performer via fewer than six professional links. Your challenge is to find if anyone has a Bacon Number Zero.
Or try the 6D game on WhoSampled.com to come up with two musicians that do not share any professional links. It’s harder than you’d think. Gwyneth Paltrow and Rod Stewart have covered the same songs, Adele and Eminem share a producer.
Which just proves the point that humans interact in uncontrollable, unexpected ways. And that your one avoidable meeting may well be six meetings away from someone who met an infected person. Hold out long enough and there will probably be a new networking theory about you and this time in our lives too.
