Nicholas A. Christakis and James H., Book Review Example

Book Review of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives

The book by Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler aims at revealing the concealed impact of social networks on the life, moods, activities and attitudes of people. It offers an alternative viewpoint on the human interactions and argues that people who one does not even know influence his or her life heavily. The authors combine a huge number of social and psychological theories offering statistics, genetic research and sociological surveys to prove their opinion and show how an individual is affected by people surrounding him or her. More than that, the authors give a workable way for every person to consciously realize the whole scope of positive and negative influences that he experiences and to model his or her life according to the way they desire. One of the authors, Nicholas Christakis, introduces a term “dyads” stating that all people in the world are interconnected and investigating the nature of these connections. Thus, the author summarizes the key to research in the nature of varied connections that can be observed in daily practices of all individuals without exception:

“If a wife falls ill or dies, her husband’s risk of death assuredly rises. Eventually, I began to realize that there were all kinds of dyads I might study, such as pairs of siblings or pairs of friends or pairs of neighbors who are connected ( not separated) by a backyard fence” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009, ix).

The first chapter represents the basic information about the inner construction of a social network and its types. The term of a dyad is explained, and the place of an individual in the network is analyzed (whether people are in the center of a group or at the periphery etc.). The authors also discuss three types of groups: a bucket brigade, a telephone tree and a military squad, and their distinguishing peculiarities, the direction of ties within them and the place of each member thereof. In this chapter they introduce the notion of the group as “a collection of individuals defined by a common attribute” and find out why the group connections are spreads only on a three-degree scheme and not more (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). In their judgment they rely more heavily on the assumptions of information corruption, the network instability and the evolutionary predisposition of people to pass on social influences on three degrees only (Christakis and Fowler, 2009).

The second chapter is dedicated to the issues of emotions and their transmission from one individual to another one. The authors argue that one can be influenced by the emotions of a person who they do not even know, thus proving the three-degree scheme. They prove their point by recollecting the Tanzania experience with mass hysteria: “In 1962 in Tanzania an epidemic of laughing spread through many villages resulting in the closing of several schools” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). This happened because of only three girls, with the epidemic quickly spreading to vast areas and affecting a huge number of people. The same practices can be seen in the negative form – when a friend speaks about severe pain he feels, one can also feel pain or sickness after that talk. Christakis and Fowler (2009) state that emotions govern group activity shaping behavior and enhancing the human bonds. Special attention in the chapter is paid to the ability of imitate the mimics of others. Many causes of diseases are found in the unconscious imitation, and many tendencies in family influences are found out (the way family members influence each other). Which is also important, the authors find the direct connection between loneliness and social ties – “Happy and unhappy people cluster among themselves”, “Each unhappy friend deceases the likelihood of happiness 7%” etc. (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). These examples clearly prove how susceptible of others’ behavior and emotions all people are and how they can influence their own life by changing the social network in which they operate.

The third chapter is dedicated to the issue of love and its social origin in everyone’s life. First of all, the authors distinguish such types of love as lust, love and devotion and state that they have different objects and different nature (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). Arguing the social origin of love, the authors give examples of surveys revealing how the couple formed: “68% of people were introduced to their spouse by a common acquaintance” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). Further on the chapter is dedicated to finding the key to matchmaking and married life that is proven to be governed by homogamy (the wish to marry with someone alike). The concepts of relative standing and absolute standing are discussed, with the conclusion made that people are obsessed by the former, which influences the perception of sexual appeal and self-esteem. The authors favor marriages and state that “When men get married there is a sharp and dramatic decline in their risk of death” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009).

The fourth chapter investigates the issues of health and their connection with social networks. The key concept here is multiplexity, i.e. the ability to have different kids of relationships with one and the same person (e.g. one’s wife may be a close friend and a colleague). In this respect authors focus on sexual relationships: “Sexual networks are helpful in the study of social networks because having sex with someone is a deliberate and detectable type of social tie” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). They investigate the formation of couples according to age and skin color and discover several social tendencies that make individuals choose those girlfriends and boyfriends with who they are alike. Besides, they investigate such health-related phenomenon as infectious obesity – “from 1990 to 2000, the percentage of obese people in the USA increased from 21% to 33%” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). Thus, the authors state that fat friends of one’s friends, being even not acquainted with an individual, can make him or her fat.

The fifth chapter pertains to money – the authors investigate how the financial decisions of many people are influenced by irrational, hysteric considerations (as in the case with North Rock Bank). “Millions of pounds were withdrawn causing a financial crisis that effected not only Northern Rock Bank but the entire banking and investing community” (Christakis and Howler, 2009). The discussion concerns the investigation of price and demand formation in the market. The authors assume that the economy of any give country is heavily influenced by the wants of people that, in their turn, are influenced by public thinking.

The sixth chapter deals with the connection between social networks and politics. The authors analyze the inner instigators that make people want to vote, and find out that there is no reasonable explanation to this wish but the fact that people re connected: “People do not decide whether or not to vote in isolation. We vote because our friends vote!” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). In addition, the authors explore the importance of activism and wide freedom of social networks that may shape self-awareness.

The seventh chapter discovers social networks from the evolutionary viewpoint. The authors argue that “social networks have recently become more visible with the creation of so many online social networks, but they have always existed and affected the way people live and interact!” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). They state that a social network is largely shaped by the needs of its participants, analyze the four types of characters that formed historically and make a conclusion that human genes heavily influence people’s emotions, popularity in the society etc.

The eighth chapter is dedicated to cyber-networks and the role of technology in social networking. According to the authors’ opinion, “Entirely new networks can form in virtual worlds that mimic real life.  They can also provide a platform for research” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). The authors explore the new opportunities offered by the internet and their effect on social networks – they find out that people who choose avatars looking more ideally than they do behave more confidently (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). Besides, they conclude that social networks grow even stronger with the strengthening of technology.

The ninth chapter serves a logical conclusion for everything that has been said in the book – the authors say that it is due to cooperation and mutual help that people achieve huge results, progress and development. They recollect the research on social connections held many centuries ago and conclude about the overwhelming power of unity: “By joining together, humans are able to accomplish feats otherwise unimaginable, just like ants cooperate to make an ant hill” (Christakis and Fowler, 2009). However, they also warn the reader about potential negative influences that social networks can produce on them by means of group thinking, e.g. eating unhealthy food or committing a crime.

In general, the book has very much valuable information on the social networks that is available from various social, psychological, genetic and historical studies, but has never been summarized in such a natural, comprehensive and logical way. There has been much extensive research in the sphere of topology in social networks (a good example is the work of Lewin (2008) dedicated to topological psychology, the science explaining the establishment of ties within a group) and social economy (the true activist in this sphere was max Weber who argued that “interest-driven behavior” and “social behavior” can be united for the explanation of economic realia (Swedberg, 2000) and who studied the juxtaposition of individual autonomy in contrast to the cohesiveness of social bonding (Ho Kim, 2004). Studying the inner structure of society and social networks is impossible without mentioning Emile Durkheim and his study of “social morphology” , “social density” in the meaning of people’s interactions with one another, and the construction of “social reality” through networking (Morrison, 2006; Durkheim and Traugott, 1994; Hamilton, 1995).

Mead is famous for introducing an alternative approach to studying human communication in terms of “playing a game” (Whitworth and de Moor, 2009). Festinger conducted extensive research in such spheres as aspiration formation depending on various communicative interactions (Festinger, Schachter and Gazzaniga, 1989), group formation and functioning as well as patterns of group structure and mechanisms of compliance with group standards (Festinger, Schachter and Back, 1963). Thus, as one can see, Christakis and Fowler are not alone in their research of social networks, though their work really opens the interesting and exciting aspects for studying this social phenomenon.

References

Christakis, N.A. & Fowler, J.H. (2009). Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. London: Little, Brown and Company.

Durkheim, E., & Traugott, M. (1994). Emile Durkheim on Institutional Analysis. University of Chicago Press.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S, & Back, K.W. (1963). Social pressures in informal groups: a study of human factors in housing. Stanford University Press.

Festinger, L., Schachter, S, & Gazzaniga, M.S. (1989). Extending psychological frontiers: selected works of Leon Festinger. Russell Sage Foundation Publications.

Hamilton, P. (1996). Emile Durkheim, critical assessments, Vol. 3. Routledge.

Kim, S. H. (2007). Max Weber’s politics of civil society. Cambridge University Press.

Lewin, K. (2008). Principles of Topological Psychology. Munshi Press.

Morrison, K. (2006). Marx, Durkheim, Weber: formations of modern social thought. (2^nd ed.). Sage Publications Ltd.

Swedberg, R. (2000). Max Weber and the idea of economic sociology. Princeton University Press.

Whitworth, B., & de Moor, A. (2009). Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems. Idea Group Inc (IGI).