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alanwalton's review
4.0
Great insight into social networks, in the technical sense of the term. The discussion is a little risque at times, but the science is very interesting.
till_sunfield's review
3.0
Ganz ok. Größtenteils eine popwissenschaftliche Darstellung von Forschungsergebnissen, die teils outdated, teils etwas wahlos und undiskutiert hintereinander gebabbt sind. Die theoretische Aufmachung zu Beginn und ein paar ausgewählte Unterkapitel zu besagten Forschungsergebnissen fand ich aber dennoch sehr spannend.
michelleloretta's review
3.0
Interesting reflections and observations on how people connect and the impact on our lives.
jsisco's review against another edition
3.0
The potential for great work is certainly present here, but the authors fumble the ball at several points, choosing to go for anecdotal studies over and over again instead of creating real insight into the interaction of humans. Their one real insight (The Third Degree Influence Rule) is hammered into the audience throughout the text, and, in the long run, the book suffers for it.
It's not dribble, it's just not particularly interesting.
It's not dribble, it's just not particularly interesting.
jovia1947's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.25
This has been a good read about the importance of building social networks and how social networks influence us, but I would have loved it if the book covered how to build these networks.
Also, it seems like the authors never really consulted nor talked to women in the book, so the interpretation of the research when it comes to how people choose relationships was quite misleading. For example, when the authors claimed there is a matchmaking website that allows men to post only if they are recommended by a former girlfriend, using this as an example as to why it is the phenomena that women choose mates based on if other women are attracted to them. This is not quite accurate, as these groups are created for women to help other women avoid rapists and abusers.
Otherwise, the book was quite great.
Also, it seems like the authors never really consulted nor talked to women in the book, so the interpretation of the research when it comes to how people choose relationships was quite misleading. For example, when the authors claimed there is a matchmaking website that allows men to post only if they are recommended by a former girlfriend, using this as an example as to why it is the phenomena that women choose mates based on if other women are attracted to them. This is not quite accurate, as these groups are created for women to help other women avoid rapists and abusers.
Otherwise, the book was quite great.
marymoth's review against another edition
3.0
We discovered that if your friend's friend's friend stopped smoking, you stopped smoking. And we discovered that if your friend's friend's friend became happy, you became happy.”
Well hello, I am sure this is not everyone´s cup of tea but I will have to say that I DO recommend this book. Quite frankly, there isn´t much for me to do during these vacations and so I decided to keep focusing on reading extra material.
This book has a main simple thesis: We are all connected and with this, we lose individuality in some way, making us, as the quote goes, influenced by other people within our network. The book I must say, is quite short. It only consists of 9 chapters and all are incredibly well explained. No problem at all trying to understand them.
“Because of our tendency to want what others want, and because of our inclination to see the choices of others as an efficient way to understand the world, our social networks can magnify what starts as an essentially random variation.”
Chapter one starts of with the basics, how groups and social networks are defined and the rules that exist within them ( that we are mainly the ones who shape our network and in turn, the network shapes us as well as friends and friends friends friends affect us -known as the 3 degree influence).
Chapter two follows by explaining how some emotional elements are spread (based upon evolutionary purposes, mimicry and adopting inward states). The book follows smoothly and explains several cases were this was seen (MPI for instance) . Happiness, loneliness and love are also explained, mainly based of on how networks improve our happiness or makes us feel more lonely which will in turn will make us sever our ties with other people.
Chapter three mainly focuses on the finding of partners and how usually, partners are found by the three degree separation rule and is also determined by our surroundings. It also introduces interesting concepts like relative and absolute standing, the widow effect multiplexity in relationships and why men gain more when they marry than women.
Chapter four focuses on smoking, drinking, the contagion of STD´s among other things. While chapter 5 focuses mainly on economics, financial crisis and supply and demand and how it is exactly that is driven by social networks.
Now chapter 6, this was the chapter I was more interested on since I had taken a political science class and it talked about voting and the rationality of it as well as polarization, the network ties between politicians, lobbyists and how can they exactly be traced. I throughly enjoyed this chapter, it was highly interesting and quite frankly deepened and enriched my previous knowledge.
Finally, chapters 7, 8 and 9 focus on evolutionary traits and genes which are in some part responsible of the creation of our social networks, alturism, charity cooperation, etc and introduces several types of people that help regulate the environment (cooperators, loners, free riders, etc) It also tackles several common thoughts and explains how we usually tend to behave in certain situations (experiments are shown and it touches several interesting topics like bioterror attacks, and the willingness to obey). Quite frankly, this was interesting. The only reason I am giving this 3 stars is because I sometimes found it too much. Overall though, I do recommend it and I would say there´s no need to actually have prior knowledge, which is fabulous.
“If we are connected to everyone else by six degrees and we can influence them up to three degrees, then one way to think about ourselves is that each of us can reach about halfway to everyone else on the planet.”
Well hello, I am sure this is not everyone´s cup of tea but I will have to say that I DO recommend this book. Quite frankly, there isn´t much for me to do during these vacations and so I decided to keep focusing on reading extra material.
This book has a main simple thesis: We are all connected and with this, we lose individuality in some way, making us, as the quote goes, influenced by other people within our network. The book I must say, is quite short. It only consists of 9 chapters and all are incredibly well explained. No problem at all trying to understand them.
“Because of our tendency to want what others want, and because of our inclination to see the choices of others as an efficient way to understand the world, our social networks can magnify what starts as an essentially random variation.”
Chapter one starts of with the basics, how groups and social networks are defined and the rules that exist within them ( that we are mainly the ones who shape our network and in turn, the network shapes us as well as friends and friends friends friends affect us -known as the 3 degree influence).
Chapter two follows by explaining how some emotional elements are spread (based upon evolutionary purposes, mimicry and adopting inward states). The book follows smoothly and explains several cases were this was seen (MPI for instance) . Happiness, loneliness and love are also explained, mainly based of on how networks improve our happiness or makes us feel more lonely which will in turn will make us sever our ties with other people.
Chapter three mainly focuses on the finding of partners and how usually, partners are found by the three degree separation rule and is also determined by our surroundings. It also introduces interesting concepts like relative and absolute standing, the widow effect multiplexity in relationships and why men gain more when they marry than women.
Chapter four focuses on smoking, drinking, the contagion of STD´s among other things. While chapter 5 focuses mainly on economics, financial crisis and supply and demand and how it is exactly that is driven by social networks.
Now chapter 6, this was the chapter I was more interested on since I had taken a political science class and it talked about voting and the rationality of it as well as polarization, the network ties between politicians, lobbyists and how can they exactly be traced. I throughly enjoyed this chapter, it was highly interesting and quite frankly deepened and enriched my previous knowledge.
Finally, chapters 7, 8 and 9 focus on evolutionary traits and genes which are in some part responsible of the creation of our social networks, alturism, charity cooperation, etc and introduces several types of people that help regulate the environment (cooperators, loners, free riders, etc) It also tackles several common thoughts and explains how we usually tend to behave in certain situations (experiments are shown and it touches several interesting topics like bioterror attacks, and the willingness to obey). Quite frankly, this was interesting. The only reason I am giving this 3 stars is because I sometimes found it too much. Overall though, I do recommend it and I would say there´s no need to actually have prior knowledge, which is fabulous.
“If we are connected to everyone else by six degrees and we can influence them up to three degrees, then one way to think about ourselves is that each of us can reach about halfway to everyone else on the planet.”
erikars's review
2.0
This book had some great information packed inside of a repetitive package that wasn't very sticky.
Once you picked up the key ideas, most of the conclusions followed in a fairly obvious manner. The key ideas or, at least, the ones that I remember, were:
- Network influence tends to travel three degrees before shrinking to statistical insignificance. You influence your friends, friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends, and they influence you back. The strength of influence decreases with each separation, but the number of people influenced increases.
- Network effects are real. They persist even once researchers account for other sources of similarity in the network such as homophily (the tendency for like to be connected to like) and common external factors (people near each other in the network may share experiences).
Everything travels across the network -- ideas, emotional state, behavior, disease, etc. -- and because of the three degrees of influence rule, you only have limited control over what you are exposed to and who you can influence.
- Not all network ties are equal (weak ties and strong ties). The most important information tends to come from ties that are distant or weak. This is because you have a pretty good idea of the information held by those connected with close, strong ties. For example, people tend to find jobs and relationship opportunities through distant or weak ties because they have generally already evaluated the opportunities presented by their strong, close ties. Distance brings information that you have not already incorporated.
Once you know these principles, much of the rest of the book becomes fairly straightforward.
The authors did present some compelling information in their discussion of the internet. Based on studies that they and others have done, they concluded that relationships on the internet tend to be largely the same as traditional relationships. The mix may have changed (more weak ties, perhaps) and the means of network maintenance have certainly changed, but, for better and worse, people are still largely the same creatures.
Overall, I am glad that I read this book. The information was interesting even if the presentation was less than gripping. The information in the book consisted almost exclusively of real studies, so the conclusions seem well founded, even if not surprising.
Once you picked up the key ideas, most of the conclusions followed in a fairly obvious manner. The key ideas or, at least, the ones that I remember, were:
- Network influence tends to travel three degrees before shrinking to statistical insignificance. You influence your friends, friends' friends, and friends' friends' friends, and they influence you back. The strength of influence decreases with each separation, but the number of people influenced increases.
- Network effects are real. They persist even once researchers account for other sources of similarity in the network such as homophily (the tendency for like to be connected to like) and common external factors (people near each other in the network may share experiences).
Everything travels across the network -- ideas, emotional state, behavior, disease, etc. -- and because of the three degrees of influence rule, you only have limited control over what you are exposed to and who you can influence.
- Not all network ties are equal (weak ties and strong ties). The most important information tends to come from ties that are distant or weak. This is because you have a pretty good idea of the information held by those connected with close, strong ties. For example, people tend to find jobs and relationship opportunities through distant or weak ties because they have generally already evaluated the opportunities presented by their strong, close ties. Distance brings information that you have not already incorporated.
Once you know these principles, much of the rest of the book becomes fairly straightforward.
The authors did present some compelling information in their discussion of the internet. Based on studies that they and others have done, they concluded that relationships on the internet tend to be largely the same as traditional relationships. The mix may have changed (more weak ties, perhaps) and the means of network maintenance have certainly changed, but, for better and worse, people are still largely the same creatures.
Overall, I am glad that I read this book. The information was interesting even if the presentation was less than gripping. The information in the book consisted almost exclusively of real studies, so the conclusions seem well founded, even if not surprising.
statman's review against another edition
4.0
I decided to pick up the book after hearing a fascinating talk last year given by one of the authors and I was not disappointed. Interesting read about the power of networks to spread culture, disease and information. Shares a wide variety of examples that show how we are connected as human beings and how things transmit in our networks. Shows some examples of network analysis but doesn't go into the details of the analysis, focusing instead on keeping the book at a higher level, making it more broadly accessible.