While studying thirty years of data collected as part of a national study on obesity Nikolas Christakis and James Fowler began what would soon grow into significant findings about how connected we all are. In the process they discovered and verified the presence of the degrees of influence we have on each other. While we may all be separated by six degrees our influence only reaches half that far.
The networks we create are organic, they change and grow over time while often keeping the same focus. For instance networks of obese people tended to remain relatively the same as it evolved, and, more importantly, as members left and new ones joined the obesity level of the new members increased. The same was discovered of smokers, non-smokers who found themselves members of a network of smokers eventually became smokers themselves. Furthermore, these networks were often confined to physical neighborhoods or even cities.
The TED talk below by Nikolas Christakis is an introduction to this theory and how it explains the functionality of today’s social networking systems brought to a new level by the Internet. If you are interested in exploring this phenomenon further I’d recommend reading their book, Connected the surprising power of social networks and how they shape our lives.
