A Harvard social scientist and a political scientist have recently completed five years worth of research, compiling over 50 years worth of data originally collected for the purpose of studying cardiovascular risk factors. The data inadvertently contains a wealth of information on close friends, colleagues and family members across generations.
The remarkable finding is that our friends influence much more of our lives than ever imagined. For instance, if a person has an obese friend, their likelihood of becoming obese rises dramatically – by 171 percent, far more than any other risk factor, including genes. It doesn’t even matter how far away they live. Body weight isn’t the only contagion, however. Happiness spreads along one’s network, as does depression.
The human capacity for close friendships is remarkably consistent. People from cultures throughout the world report between four and seven close friends. The scientists wondered if technologies recent reach around the world, with internet sites such as Facebook, has changed our ability to have more close friends. They worked with anonymized Facebook data, studying such things as the number of pictures on a site which had a photograph of a friend. What they found was the number of close friends on the average Facebook site was 6.6.
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Relationships Directly Influence Behavior
A Harvard social scientist and a political scientist have recently completed five years worth of research, compiling over 50 years worth of data originally collected for the purpose of studying cardiovascular risk factors. The data inadvertently contains a wealth of information on close friends, colleagues and family members across generations.
The remarkable finding is that our friends influence much more of our lives than ever imagined. For instance, if a person has an obese friend, their likelihood of becoming obese rises dramatically – by 171 percent, far more than any other risk factor, including genes. It doesn’t even matter how far away they live. Body weight isn’t the only contagion, however. Happiness spreads along one’s network, as does depression.
The human capacity for close friendships is remarkably consistent. People from cultures throughout the world report between four and seven close friends. The scientists wondered if technologies recent reach around the world, with internet sites such as Facebook, has changed our ability to have more close friends. They worked with anonymized Facebook data, studying such things as the number of pictures on a site which had a photograph of a friend. What they found was the number of close friends on the average Facebook site was 6.6.
I am extremely eager to read their new book discussing the results of this research. It is entitled Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Change Our Lives.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 7:53 am and is filed under Social Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.