You know the old adage that there are six degrees of separation?
Try Three.
Forget what you think you know about social networking and get ready for some shocking and insightful revelations in the new title, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, by Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD and James Fowler, PhD.
The Three Degrees of Influence Rule:
Forget the number six—it’s all about three. Christakis and Fowler say that we all follow “The Three Degrees of Influence Rule.” People up to three degrees from us can have a profound influence on everything from how happy we feel to whether or not we choose to smoke or gain weight. In other words, our emotions and even actions are contagious within our social networks.
What Is Their Theory?
Christakis and Fowler prove that “social networking” is a phenomenon that goes way beyond the cyber world. Each person we encounter from our neighbors to our co-workers to our friends and family can deeply impact our emotions and life choices—whether we’re aware of it or not.
See For Yourself—Emotions Are Contagious!
In this video, Dr. Christakis explains how emotions like a smile can spread from person to person—but emotional states like happiness and even loneliness do too. In other words, human emotions have a collective and not just individual existence.
Where You’ve Seen “Connected:”
Their life changing research has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, the Today show, and The Colbert Report, and on the front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and USA Today.
About the Authors:
Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, is a professor at Harvard University with joint appointments in the Departments of Health Care Policy, Sociology, and Medicine, and in 2009 was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world.
James H. Fowler, PhD, is an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, in the Department of Political Science and The Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, and was named one of the “most inspiring scientists” by the San Diego Science Festival.
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