My answer on Quora
Agree with Brad on the ‘law of proximity’. Stanford researchers conducted a study of MIT dorms. Those on the edges of the dorms had no friends while those that lived in the middle had a lot of friends. The housing assignments were random so what it came down to was how physically close they were. As the distance doubled, the chance of that person being your friend went down by half. It’s exponential not linear….similar to the abatement of sound as distance increases.
Additionally, researchers at Bell Labs asked a company’s employees who they were most likely to collaborate with. In scientific environments, there was a 10.9% chance that people would work with the person next to them. If you walked down the hall..the percentage went down to 1.9%. If you went to another floor, a fraction of a percent. If you went to another building, there was almost no chance that that person would work on the same project.
Increasing social distance breeds dehumanization. It’s about the power of relationships.