I’ve heard the phrases “what a small world” and “six degrees of separation” so often that I had never really thought to deeply about them. I just accepted that fact that I would run into people with whom I had a mutual acquaintance, and by that logic, it seemed likely that by extension/association I would know a lot of people.

But when I sit down and try and think how, through only 6 relationships, that I would know the President of the USA, that seemed a bit of a stretch. Who would I know that would even have hopes of knowing someone who knew the President, and not just on some superficial level; “oh yeah! I sat on next to a guy on the bus who said he knew a guy who once went to school with Barack Obama”….come on now.

I mean real legitimate associations, a friendship or family relation; some kind of meaningful link. That notion of 6 degrees of separation seemed more unlikely to me. So I tried to map it out – how could I know the President? I turned to Facebook.

I had lived in America so that should have made it easier right? If I could keep going through mutual friends until I found someone who worked in the US government I would count that as a win. Turns out it was easier than I thought.. within 20 minutes I had found a few Congressmen’s Facebook pages and a couple of other people who have listed they worked in the White House. Another 15 minutes and I had trimmed it down to 7 links (more than 6 degrees but I’m chalking that up as a W). I could have probably found it in less links but Facebook isn’t the most reliable medium for this kind of research!

Maybe one day Facebook will have a “mutual friends of your mutual friends” option when looking through peoples’ profiles?