+ 011 - 05.11.2010 - ACADEMIC

IN RESPONSE TO: Nicholas Christakis: The hidden influence of social networks

Social networking. I feel like I start off every blog talking about them. In keeping with tradition, for this blog post, I actually decided to talk about social networks- or talk about what Nicholas Christakis has to say about them. He talks about 'induction' (if I do this, you do this,) 'homophily' (the 'birds of a feather' idea) and 'confounding' (finding a common ground) in terms of connection, but most importantly, he talks about the connections themselves that people make with each other.

I do want to say, first off, that his study had to do with obesity and weight gain- but the connections between people hold true in many different ways.

Christakis talks about seeing social networks as a living thing. They are born, they live and they die. He also talks about the spread of emotions across a network, for example, like anger or fear in a riot situation. This ripple effect is something that I find valid and interesting.

Mr. Christakis and his colleagues have come up with several different maps and images to help us understand the connections between people. He questions why our networks aren't formed particularly in a conventional, lattice shape, and explains that it isn't the way networks work. He then goes on to talk about the network as a super organism which has the potential to explain crime, politics and other relevant topics.

Christakis delivers the talk dynamically, and when it comes to advertising, it's clear that TRENDING can easily be slipped into the fray of things that can be predicted and explained through the super organism of a social network.