Once every year or so, a book comes along that opens a new window in your mind, and gives you a different prism through which to view the world. The Long Tail, The Search and Freakonomics are examples that come to mind. Connected is one such.
The book focuses on social networks (not social networking websites) — how they are formed, why we become friends with the people we do, how we influence our social network and how our social network influences us.
It is not just people who are important — what is sometimes more important is the relationships between them and how these relationships influence their behaviour.
Christakis is a professor of medical sociology at Harvard Medical School and a professor of sociology at the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Fowler, a political scientist, is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, and was earlier at Harvard.
For several years, both researched social networks independently and from different perspectives. Christakis began researching how the death of a spouse impacted the health of the partner. From there he expanded to studying the phenomenon across a larger social network. Fowler, on the other hand, had spent years studying the origins of people’s political beliefs and how human beings would come together to accomplish what they could not on their own.
They came together to research social networks and one output of that research is this book.
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Engrossing and easy to read, some of the findings in the book will surprise you.
It is an oft-repeated claim that people on the planet are separated by an average of six degrees or six hops on their social network. To this the authors have added an important qualifier — there are six degrees of separation and three degrees of influence. They claim that everything that we do will influence the behaviour of our friends, our friends’ friends and then their friends. Behaviour is contagious — it ripples along our social network up to three degrees. You will, therefore, be influenced by the behaviour of people you don’t know and perhaps have not even heard of.
I bet you didn’t know that being married adds seven years to a man’s life and two years to a woman’s — marriage is beneficial (on average) but it is more beneficial to men.
And obesity is contagious — you have a greater chance of putting on weight if your friends have fat friends.
Suicide too is contagious — there are suicide clusters on social networks.
Other phenomena that are contagious along social networks are back pain and sex practices.
It is irrational for a citizen to vote in an election — after all, one vote doesn’t make a difference in the outcome of an election. We don’t vote to do our civic duty. We vote as a part of a larger social process in which we want to participate. Those of us who vote do so because our social network votes.
Of course, Indian politicians always knew this.
While the average Facebook user has 110 friends, only 6.6 are close friends.
These are some of the interesting nuggets of information that the book has.
The authors assert that a social network is like a human superorganism that acquires a life of its own. It grows, changes, reproduces, survives and dies just like human beings. It has an anatomy and a physiology — a structure and a function. This human superorganism does what no person could do alone.
A better understanding of social networks and how they influence people’s behaviour can be useful in several ways.
Marketers can leverage social networks to influence adoption and use of their products. Many know this and are already doing it.
The entire microfinance industry has been built on the assumption that there is a greater chance of people repaying loans if there is pressure on them to do so from their social network. You don’t need collaterals to secure a loan, you need a social network you can leverage.
Politicians can and are already leveraging social networks to mobilise their voters and get them to the booth on election day. The authors have highlighted Barak Obama’s election campaign as an example of how this can be done.
Governments would be wise to use the power of social networks to shape desirable behaviour in society — whether it is the small-family norm, doing away with dowry, educating the girl child or paying taxes honestly.
The book makes a compelling case that you can never fully understand people unless you explore how they are connected and how those connections work. A must read.
The author is MD and CEO of Naukri.com
CONNECTED
The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
Nikolas Christakis and James Fowler
Harper Press
338 pages