As it turns out, six degrees was a tiny bit optimistic in referring to how much social separation exists between each of us. But kick it up one more degree and we're suddenly one big group of friends spread out across the globe. Microsoft researchers recently put the "six degrees of separation" theory to the test by analyzing Microsoft Messenger instant messages to find out on average how many "hops" it takes to connect any two people. After crunching the numbers on 30 billion conversations, the magic number is 6.6. So Kevin Bacon and his six degrees of separation from the rest of Hollywood wasn't far off.