After eight months of intensive research using flowcharts and complex computer programs, researchers have found the Stapleton Facebook Missing Link which would officially connect all of Stapleton Facebook users. “We were trying to see if you could easily connect to every Stapleton person using ‘mutual friends,’” says lead scientist Kyle Carnewal. “We would get close, but eventually, would get to a dead end. So, we wanted to see what, and more importantly who, the dead end was.” Researchers then used complex computer programs to search the Stapleton Facebook pages to find who the one person was keeping all of Stapleton from being connected through Facebook.
The search turned up Justin Christin who needed to become friends with three people in order for all of Stapleton to be officially connected in some way. “We reached out to Justin and the other three parties to see I they would be willing to connect,” said Carnewal. “Luckily, they were willing to connect, and of course, that closed the loophole. Now, everyone in Stapleton is officially connected within three Facebook friend degrees.”
Carnewal says there was no purpose to the study except to maybe show how closed off Stapleton is beginning to become. “It will be interesting in the long term how these odd connections play out,” says Carnewal. “If you are sharing information and opinions within one group, and those opinions begin to homogenize, it could really shape a group, or in this case a large neighborhood’s, view of the world.”
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