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4 out of 5
by
Andrew
from
The United States | Jul 21, 2010
Excellent book by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler that describe how social networks can explain many social phenomena from voting patterns to the spread of food allergies to the epidemic of diabetes and depression.
Though most books in the social sciences are interesting, but light on evidence, the authors give due diligence to describing experiments and providing relatively robust analyses to support their claims.
Here is a list of high yield facts/experiments/insights in the book (spoiler alert!):
- 3.3 million Americans are supposedly allergic to nuts and 6.9 million are to seafood. But serious allergic reactions lead to only 2,000 hospitalizations per year (out of 30 million total hospitalizations) and at most only 150 Americans die each year from food allergies (compared to 50 for bee stings, 100 from lightning strikes, 45,000 from motor vehicle accidents, 2,000 who drown, 13,000 who die from gun accidents. The authors argue that these reports of allergies have spread like wild-fire through social networks due to anxiety and hysteria fromseeing others having allergies.
- A person is 15% more likely to be happy if a directly connected person is happy. (10% more likely if someone two degrees separated is happy. 6% more likely if someone three degress separated is happy.)
Compare this to the 2% bump when one gets $10,000.
- When the subway in Vienna, Austria was finished in 1978, suicides soared. When psychiatrists and journalists worked together to temper the detail in the coverage of the suicides, suicides dropped from 40/yr to 6/yr.
- Typical immunization campaigns require a 80-100% vaccination rate. However, if adopting a strategy to only vaccinate the well-connected acquaintances of randomly selected individuals, equivalent protection can be seen with ~30% vaccination.
- Election markets predict outcomes better than polls.
- There were two cool psychology experiments/games that were described:
1) Ultimatum game - two players, $10, player 1 decides how much of the $10 to give player 2. If player 2 accepts, the prize is split as proposed. If player 2 refuses, neither gets any money. Traditional economics predicts that player 1 will take $9.99 and give player 2 $0.01. However, often times the split was an even $5-$5. The authors don't simply take this as proof, but support for the idea that humans are hardwired to be altruistic. The authors do note that often times player 2 refused low offers (even though this was against his/her economic interest) and thus the equilibrium pushed towards $5-$5.
2) Dictator game- In this version of the game, player 1's decision was automatically taken. Traditional economics dictates that player 1 would take all $10 since player 2 was powerless. However, the equilibrium was established around $8-$2. Altruism indeed!
- Stanley Milgrim's 3 famous experiments were described: 1) 6 degrees of separation, which was replicated worldwide via email by other scientists, 2) developing a group following after looking up at nothing in particular, 3) the infamous Nazi-electrocution experiment.
- When study subjects took on online avatar identities via online gaming, they demonstrated The Proteus Effect in which the more attractive avataars were more dominant in the ultimatum game (described above). Whereas short avataars proposed $52-$48 splits of $100, tall avataars were closer to $61-$39.
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4 out of 5
by
getAbstract
from
Switzerland | Mar 24, 2010
A report on the basic urge to connect
Individuals derive their identities from their social networks. By forging dynamic connections, people accomplish innumerable worthwhile activities, such as giving to charity and sharing knowledge. Unfortunately, social networks also can bring great harm to their members. Panics may reverberate across financial networks, quickly sending stock markets into death spirals and shutting down credit for businesses and consumers. Pathogens like the AIDS virus can sweep across sexual and other networks. In this book, acclaimed scientists and academics Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler explore the properties and capacities of social networks. They present their findings about how and why people connect. getAbstract recommends their analysis to sociology and psychology buffs, as well as to managers and marketers who would like to develop more insight into how to take advantage of social networks.
To learn more about this book, check out the following Web page: https://www.getabstract.com/summary/1242...
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3 out of 5
by
Bob
from
The United States | Aug 19, 2009
Written by an MD/PhD and an MD--practicing professors and social scientists--this book examines social networks from numerous points of view: historical, biological, political, technological.
The first two thirds of the book are essentially a summary of studies, focused mainly on showing who affects us (friends of friends, more than friends themselves!), what they effect (sex, wealth, health, and social mores), and the power of those networks to change or reinforce behavior. The last third picks up the pace, as the authors start to make their own conclusions.
The book aspires to Malcom Gladwellian levels of genius, using clever anecdotes and real-world applications of its data. Gladwell, however, uses anecdotes not merely as window-dressing but as metaphors. He has simmered down his chapters like my grandmother's marinara. His real-world data hits you at the end like a revelation: all the while he has been talking about a bigger picture (e.g. racism), and has laid it all out in a page-ripping narrative.
Alas, Gladwell this ain't. For 200 pages, the authors drag the reader through arcane terminology, formative studies (which, with the exception of those by Stanley Milgram, are stultifyingly boring), and other establishing material of main interest for academics, professional scientists, or compulsives like me who can't skip ahead, or even stop reading a book once begun. Note to the authors: we're not vetting this as a scientific paper!
By the last 100 pages of the book, the authors finally get interesting. In terms of television, online networks, and electoral politics, they discuss the _implications_ of the social networks they've described. We haven't evolved so much as a species, they say, but the classic categorizations of society (Adam Smith on one side, and Karl Marx on the other) need to be re-evaluated.
Further: because of the digital age, we have better access to data, and can understand and manipulate our social networks more effectively. Then the authors make two conclusions: one, humans are basically good (supported with data!); and two, we can use social networks to cultivate more of this goodness. Best of all, they even suggest how: by addressing the digital divide, by encouraging charity, by making health and welfare policy more effective.
It's a startling and constructive end to a book that might have done better to begin there. Saying that "we're connected!" is an anticlimactic argument. Saying what happens next, that would be revolutionary. These social scientists have done some prodigious homework but have barely begun to sketch the trajectory of their equations.
*
WHY I READ THIS BOOK: It was being promoted at the Book Expo this summer (it comes out next month on Little, Brown) and I was in the mood for some non-fiction. As it turns out, moreover, I have been wrestling with the question "are good works necessarily made by good people?" ... and if it's true that the right book chooses you at the right time, then this happened here. To say "c'mon people now, it's time to get together" is not a new conclusion (cf Jesus, Buddha, Dorothy Day, King Sunny Adé, the Youngbloods), but the authors have suggested some strategies I should consider in my work on various public programs. They say: "To reduce poverty, we should focus not merely on monetary transfers or even technical training; we should help the poor form new relationships with other members of society." Can a public festival help change the world? Stay tuned for the experience of reading Chris Hedges' EMPIRE OF ILLUSION (The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle)...
1 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Jj
from
The United States | Oct 21, 2009
Most people hold their family and friends important to their lives - that's a given. And many have played the Six Degrees of Separation (Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) game. But how important those social networks has not been as well understood. Christakis and Fowler show us that it really is who we know and how we know them that is more important than we ever understood in our lives. Through our friends, and their friends and acquaintances, we amass a rather large collection of people who can have very strong effect on our lives - including influencing our body weight and lifestyle. With the Internet now our circle of who we know continues to grow, though the authors show that effectively that number is capped in the 150 range. Some of what is talked about is almost "well, duh" to the reader, but they have brought together an extensive collection of studies that bear out again and again how our social networks shape us, even showing that our networking personalities and position (central vs. peripheral) even comes from our genes). Often what is taken for granted in terms of who we know and socialize with may be more deliberate and specific than we ever give credit for. Probably one of the most eye opening books this year impacting every facet of our home, work and social lives and shows the potential power these relationships have. A fascinating read.
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5 out of 5
by
Paulo
from
Portland, OR | Oct 21, 2009
We now live with humongous online social networks, but human beings have always had them -- in fact, it is one of the very things that defines being "human." Or says this book, which is a must read for understanding the power that social networks have had from the beginnings of human history and how that works.
This book provides a magnificent explanation of how central our connections to others have always been, going back to the tribal. In addition, the authors posit that our need to be so connected in part explains our need for such a big brain.
It's fascinating to understand how our tastes, our habits and our decisions are influenced by people we've never met, but this book explains how that works -- how if a friend of a friend starts drinking or stops smoking that can affect you. They've proven it with amazing analysis of extensive social network data. Such is the power of social networks. My favorite quote that the book cites is by Erik Hoffer, which goes "When people are given the freedom to do as they choose, they usually imitate each other." Ain't that the truth!
This book is going to be help me be more mindful of this living "super-organism" -- the social network -- how it supports me and how I can use it to support myself and others altruistically.