(Image source: Coated)

BY JIM FLINK

Planet earth -- is feeling a little more snug today. You know the phrase -- six degrees of separation? Turns out -- it’s really less than five.  And shrinking.

Here’s the New York Times with details.

“...scientists at Facebook and the University of Milan reported on Monday that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people in the world was not six but 4.74.”

And if you think that’s a little too close for comfort, it gets even tighter when you get closer to home.  CNET notes...

“When focusing on a single country, that average falls to three, researchers found.”

All of this, the researchers at Facebook and Milan University note, is the result of increased social networking. Convenient, isn’t it?

And if you’re beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, The Verge suggests, you’re not imagining it.

“Facebook was able to calculate that the average in 2011 is 4.74 steps, as compared to 5.28 just three years ago — far less than the 7 hops required for six degrees to hold true. As Facebook puts it, when considering even the farthest flung user, ‘a friend of your friend probably knows a friend of their friend.’”

The editors at Big Think answer the question -- so what’s the big idea here?

“The research is an example of the increasing power of the emerging science of social networks, in which scientists crunch gigantic sets of Internet data in order to study the ways people interact. With only a few jumps, people can now share ideas with the entire population of a nation and with just a few more reach much of the world’s population.”

So while the world just ticked over 7 billion people, which is big, it’s getting smaller. LiveMint has a more practical take on all of this.

“....there is plenty to suggest that virtual social networks have real world consequences. There are applications that ‘measure’ the amount of influence a person exercises on social networks, and a startup that uses data from your social profiles and connections on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to compute a ‘score’ that tells recruiters and prospective employers how job-fit you are. Opting out looks like less and less of an option.”

In other words -- you can’t hide.