Connected

If we could just teach about the evils of climate change, people would surely change their behaviors.

I knew this idea was not born up by the facts and was searching for an alternative. This book showed me that if I wanted to get people to eat climate-friendly foods or become a climate advocate, I needed to think about social connections—in particular, what people see their friends and family doing.

Not only do the authors describe how we influence each other’s health, voting, and even happiness—they also argue that social networks provide a middle ground between individual destiny vs structural… show more.

Did you know that your friends have more friends than you do? This may sound strange at first, but once you realize how social contagion works, you will see its power to shape our lives everywhere. From obesity, smoking, and happiness to buying, voting, and sexual practices, we affect each other’s ideas, attitudes, and behaviors in never-ending ways. But it doesn’t stop there: our actions affect and are influenced by, those of our friends, our friends’ friends, and even our friends’ friends’ friends. We are deeply embedded in social networks, and they define every aspect of our existence. This is… show more.