“Six degrees of separation works a world away” is an article written for the student newspaper ‘The Brown and White’ by LeHigh student Gwen Purdon. In this article, she reflects on the many different connections and acquaintances that she has collected over the years. She talks of writing down the names, ages, and hometowns of other children she met when she was young, whether at restaurants, camps, or on roadtrips. Throughout her life, she experienced, either personally or by observation, the numerous connections that people make and discover. She talks of how she discovered many unique connections with people who she would have otherwise categorized as just strangers. For example, she ran into a junior high classmate in a Roman piazza, and slept at a Barcelona hostel next to a guy who graduated from the high school where her brother taught.

Gwen’s article is a great example of the six degrees of separation concept that we have been talking about in class. It shows that the world is indeed a small one and that it takes not much effort to make a connection with someone who you ‘don’t know’ by finding out they know someone who knows someone that you know. Also, this reflects on the fact that the six degrees of separation works because of the existence of weak ties, not strong ties. Strong ties relate to the bonds and relationships formed by close friends or family; for the most part, these are tight knit groups with alot of centralization. However, with weak connections there is much branching and expansion of the ’social circle’. In Gwen’s case, she discovered connections with ’strangers’ because of the weak connections that they had to other people that they both somehow knew.