I’ve written a few posts about Doctor Nicholas Christakis and Doctor James Fowlers' research. This post is about their book - Connected: the Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives . Their research uses network analysis techniques to the aid the understanding obesity, smoking, happiness, back pain, sexual practices, beliefs, and other social phenomena. Their interesting finding is that all these phenomena are contagious.

Christakis and Fowler base their findings on a careful analysis of the Framingham Heart Study, conducted from 1948 to the present in a small Massachusetts city. They have mapped more than 50,000 ties between just over 12,000 people. In essence they argue that if friend’s friend’s friend - whom you’ve never met, and lives 50 kilometres away - is unhappy, then you’re likely to be unhappy as well. In other words there are three degrees of influence. They demonstrate the same outcome for smoking behaviour and obesity, and attribute it to “norming behaviour”. In short we are part of a collective (social network) that seeks homeostasis and is bound by certain rules. According to Christakis and Fowler these are:

1. We shape our network.

2. Our network shapes us.

3. Our friends affect us.

4. Our friends' friends' friends affect us.

5. The network has a life of its own.

6. There are six degrees of separation and three degrees of influence.

The book is an easy read and has something to interest most people. It is devoid of jargon and unnecessarily technical language. The examples are illuminating, but I was not always convinced. I think there are many confounders at play, and that cause and effect are not so simple, although the authors do acknowledge difficulties in this area.

Overall it was an entertaining and thought provoking read, providing one approaches the subject matter with an open and sceptical mind. I would give this book four stars. It has a nice applied approach about it, and should be on the shelf of network analysts, knowledge managers, human resource specialists, and senior managers.

Finally I note that one of Christakis and Fowlers’ conclusions is that we are slowly taking our real lives online. I agree this conclusion and wonder how it will change three degrees of influence, given that it is quite easy for my friend’s friend’s friend to be on the other side of the world, from a different culture, and speaking a different language. Perhaps the online world in the near future will provide the means for people to transmit the positive rather than the negative. I hope so. If three degrees of influence really is a law, then in the Internet Age we must push positive values and tap people’s natural reserves of altruism, reciprocity, and charity – it matters!

Regards Graham