The Quiet Riot: Lessons From Social Networks

Hat tip to Simon Mainwaring for posting this video of Harvard Professor Nicholas Christakis delivering an enlightening lecture to The RSA on the profound power and potentiality that exists (sometimes quietly, just beneath the surface) in all human social networks. Dr. Christakis referred to it as “the quiet riot.”

I was fascinated enough to watch all 43 minutes of the presentation and accompanying Q&A. Watch the whole thing if you have time. If not, here are five top-line takeaways:

• 1) An important point: social networks tend to “magnify whatever they are seeded with.” And things tend to spread through networks to three degrees of separation – sometimes more, sometimes less, but that’s a general rule of thumb.
• 2) Connections do really matter and it’s the structure of the network around an individual that’s important. One’s experience in life depends on where they are situated in the structure around them and what is happening in the structure around them.

• 3) Whether it is to a person’s advantage to be in the middle or the edge of a social network depends on what is spreading. For instance, unhappy people are more likely to be at the periphery of the social network; happy people are more likely to be in the middle of the network. However, if someone is trying avoid a spread of a dangerous virus, it’s beneficial to be on the edge.
• 4) People can be transformed by the pattern of ties that can exist between them and others; new and different properties emerge and arise as a result of the pattern of interconnectedness, the pattern of ties between them. For instance, two objects can be made of carbon, yet have totally different properties depending on how the carbon atoms are connected. Connect one way, you get graphite. Connect another way, you get diamonds.
• 5) There is a deep connection between networks and goodness; the reason we form social networks in our lives is to create and sustain all kinds of “good and desirable properties.” If someone make a positive change in their life, that change can influence others in their network.

These findings are intriguing on so many levels. After watching, the question that remains (for all who care about such things) is: How do we all take advantage of the power of social networks to seed and magnify the “goodness” that Dr. Christakis speaks of?

How can we make meaningful connections and cause a contagion of greater social purpose in our networks?

You can always tell the degree to which someone is inspired by the magnitude of their questions.

-Matthew DiGirolamo, Cause Catalysts
- COMMENT ON THIS