"You know, my friend's brother's friend's cousin's boyfriend's sister..."
Sound familiar?
The theory of six degrees of separation posits that everyone is, on average, approximately six steps away from any other person on Earth. That is, any two people on the planet can be connected on average in six steps/links or fewer.
You might think it's strange and profoundly impossible, given the Earth's population of nearly 7 billion people spread across all 7 continents. But in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world fuelled by technological leaps and bounds in communications, where artificial barriers are lowered or abolished, allowing information, capital, goods, services and people to be universally mobile, that notion is becoming more of a stark reality than anything.
Especially when it hits you close to home, on a personal level.
