How Cornell’s (and Other Colleges’) Campus Exemplifies the “Small World Phenomenon”
As a Cornell student, about what percentage of the time would you guess you pass by people that you know? How has that number changed since your first week on campus, and how about after joining clubs, jobs, and other organizations on and around campus?
It still always amazes me how frequently I run into friends and acquaintances on this huge campus. With a student body size of over 15,000 students, I did not expect, especially in my first weeks here as a lonely scared freshman, to see so many familiar faces all of the time. Now, it’s hard for me to go somewhere without seeing somebody I know, on the rare occasion that I am in an antisocial mood.
This phenomenon is reminiscent of Stanley Milgram’s 1960’s small world experiment where he “proved” that between two individuals that do not know each other there are on average about 6 degrees of separation between them. “Proved” is in quotation marks because his study was and still is debated to this day – however, many other experiments have proven validity in the phenomenon, so for the context of this blog post, we will believe its validity.
The attached (below) resource is an interesting article describing the 6 degrees of separation and highlighting how the nature of human connection and communication are a huge part of why it occurs. The article also discusses how this phenomenon has been impacted by the pandemic, which is obviously also super relevant on a campus like Cornell that was completely shut down due to COVID-19. It also discusses the relevancy of the Small World Phenomenon within LinkedIn (the source writing the article) which is another area I’ve really noticed this phenomenon; there are many people I have “connected” with that I don’t know or only slightly recognize their name but I connect with because we have mutual connections with people I do know.
In reality, I believe that if a study were run within the Cornell student body, trying to find the path between the two “nodes” of individuals who are not directly linked, the 6 degrees phenomenon would be satisfied, and it may be even shorter paths between individuals since we all inherently have the large similarity of geography. This has anecdotally played out in my personal experience; often if someone I don’t know is mentioned, whoever mentioned them can state one or a few people that they know / we have a mutual friend in, and then I have a better picture of the unknown person.
I noticed a huge difference in the relevancy of this phenomenon after joining greek life. Now, I see people within my organization essentially every time I am on campus or Collegetown, and have experienced that since I joined. I remember during recruitment members emphasizing how greek life “makes campus feel small” and I did not quite know what they meant, but now I completely see how these and other clubs / student organizations make the small world phenomenon even more relevant.
While the small world phenomenon would also be apparent on a smaller campus, I think it’s more representative of the “real world” on Cornell’s campus because there are still so many people on campus I have never and never will interact with. However, these people and I likely have a surprisingly short path between us. In comparison, on a small campus like Amherst college, I probably would know a much larger percentage of people, so the number of people I’d never meet is much smaller.
All in all, Cornell has absolutely shown me the power of the small world phenomenon, and makes me excited to see how it will play out in the rest of my life.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-do-small-world-phenomenon-principle-six-degrees-apply-tim-teinzer