Word: network
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Here's how it works. Christakis and Fowler traced the social network of 5,000 individuals who were enrolled in the large, federally funded Framingham Heart Study over a period of 32 years. The authors carefully worked out the relationships among the subjects, many of whom were related by family, social or professional ties. Then, they layered onto this network the number of cigarettes each person smoked a day, from zero upward...
Back in 1971, when the Framingham study began, smokers and nonsmokers were equally likely to be at the center of their social-relationship "nodes." By 2000, however, nonsmokers not only outnumbered the smokers, in all age groups, but they had pushed smokers to the edges of any networks they belonged to - smokers were no longer connected to as many other people. Such marginalization, says Christakis, reflects the new perception by the network as a whole that smoking isn't as desirable any more. "This shows that our health behaviors are not just affected by our friends, but by our friend...
...Getting beyond those mainstream networks with millions of users reveals sites that cater to specific interests and probably one that connects to you. I loved my matchbox car collection as a kid and I see that there's an online forum dedicated to Hot Wheels hobbyists: Mattel's official site hotwheelscollectors.com. I might be up for some regression. And that neighborhood kid who blew up one of my prized cars with fireworks? He might be found at the rotteneggs.com, a social network site dedicated to sophomoric practical joke enthusiasts...
...MySpace and Facebook are like broadcast networks, narrow-focused online cliques such as fixya.com (devoted to tech support and fix-it-yourself junkies) and smokingpassions.com (a social network and dating site devoted to smokers) are like the arcane cable channels in the three digits that, late at night, I might find myself watching for no good reason. Is there a market for these niche sites, and if so, who will go to them...
...list for my age group; after all, I still haven't figured out the purpose or proper response to a Super Poke. Top of the list for a 34-44 year-old living in the suburbs with similar interests to me is the grown-up social network called gather.com, which is sort of like a slow-going, pared-down Facebook...