A recent study looks at why human relationships are marked by six degrees of separation:

That’s why a group of researchers from Chile, Italy, Israel, Russia, Slovenia, and Spain recently collaborated to understand the mathematics behind “six degrees of separation.” They discovered that a natural human social challenge– weighing the costs versus benefits of social ties– may point toward the root of “the magic number six.”

Take a moment to think about why social networking is so coveted– in both work and recreation. Oftentimes, individuals hope to gain something, whether that be status or prominence, by identifying strategic social connections.

In these cases, people aren’t just hoping to accumulate a massive number of connections. Instead, they’re looking to find more meaningful “right” connections– which will essentially place them in a middle-network position and allow them to funnel more information flowing through their network…

At the heart of this game is the goal of social centrality, and once this battle reaches a sort-of equilibrium, all people involved have secured a position in the network that balances their drive for status against their budget for friendships.

“When we did the math, we discovered an amazing result: this process always ends with social paths centered around the number six. This is quite surprising,” explained Professor Baruch Barzel, one of the study’s lead authors.

I wonder what people might think if they saw this explanation of social relationships: it is a tradeoff between a central position in a network and how much they can spend on relationships. In some ways, we hear this in discussions of social networking where the goal is to create a lot of connections and a good flow of information and resources to you. On the other hand, viewing relationships as commodities or as transactional seems disrespectful and cruel.

Do we know that number six has always been the value or has this changed over time given social changes, settlement patterns, and other factors that differentiate life in different periods and contexts?