Social networking is not just a matter of feeling smug about how many Facebook friends you have – apparently, it also can have a big impact on your health, weight, and levels of happiness, according to new research published in the British Medical Journal this week. The study, which examined how social trends spread through friendship groups, showed that who you know can have a massive impact on your quality of life.
The main excitement has been generated by the idea that happiness, like flu, spreads. Over twenty years, researchers from Harvard Medical School monitored a social network of over 4,000 people, looking at trends in smoking, obesity, and self-reported ‘happiness levels’. They found that if one person was happy, then their friends, and consequently their friends, had a slightly higher chance of feeling the same (10% for a direct connection, 6% for a friend of a friend). The happiness spread. Any ugly ducklings who used to console themselves with the thought that the class Popularity Queen was probably aching with loneliness inside may be a little disgruntled to learn that those at the centre of social networks do actually have an increased chance of being happy.
Similarly, researchers James Fowler and Nicholas Christakis discovered that if one person gave up smoking, a friend’s likelihood of quitting increased to 36%. They revealed in May that it was not uncommon for clusters of people to quit, even though most of them didn’t know each other. When it came to obesity, research in 2007 showed that if someone became obese, those connected to them would be 57% more likely to also become overweight.My mother is doubtless right now crowing with glee that when she warned me, “Don’t hang around with so-and-so, he’s a bad lot” she may have actually had a point – the moods and behaviours of our friends impact on us.
The research has a few practical implications. The happier someone is, the better chance they have of staying healthy or fighting off illnesses. There is the possibility that now we know the impact of networking, a strategy might be developed to increase its potential. As geography plays a part in the power of social networking, we may also see attempts to encourage the development of community relations. Of course there is also a good chance that those trying to lose weight or quit smoking may be dropping a few people off their Christmas card list.