Book review: Connected. The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives

For business, personal or academic reasons, staying away of the power of social networks looks as a risky behavior. And the risk is not only of social nature, but might have as well consequences on the level of general health. The book is offering among the first, according to my knowledge, an evaluation of the implication of the network for the social, political, economic and health levels. Becoming in a relatively short time a human superorganism, the network - made up of various gatherings of friends, co-workers, people with whom we share various interests, potential mates - is creating new patterns and social habits and is involved in changing attitudes faster than before.

Although our exposure to information and though, to knowledge, is significantly different, the human qualities required to maintain the flux of information didn't changed at all, because, the authors outline from the very beginning (xi), "altruism and goodness are essential for social networks to grow and endure". And, in addition (xii): "Just as brains can do things that no single neuron can do, so can social networks do things no single person can do".

The pattern of the "everyday social networks" are following the "natural tendency of each person to seek out and make many or more friends, to have large or small families, to work in personable or anonymous workplaces" (p.13). Social networks embrace two fundamental aspects, according to the authors (p.16) - connection and contagion - and are operating according to four fundamental rules (pp. 17-26): "We shape our network", "Our network shapes us", "Our friends affect us", "Our friends' friends' friends affect us" and "The network has a life of its own". And, as "the taste of the cake transcends the simple sum of its ingredients" (p.26). Exploring different aspects - the political aspects during voting, the contagion effect of various behaviors among teenagers (as suicide or sexual experiences) - the resources for making life parterships and building relationships - we have a full picture of our networked world.

The conclusions are based on studies released in more than a decade, with a detailed quantive background. A bizarre exception, in my opinion, is the mention of the case of spreading back pain via social networks (pp.119-120): "Before the Berlin Wall, East Germany had much lower rates of back pain than West Germany, but within ten years of reunification, rates had converged to be the same, with East Germany emulating West Germany's higher rate". The authors don't mention any surveys regarding the medical situation, the working conditions or other specific affects, but the "psychosocial decontamination". This is the risk of exclusive and non-critical inductive thinking.

The novelty brought by the Internet relies on four radical modifications of "existing types of social-network interactions" (p. 275): Enormity - our worlds are becoming increasingly big and global; Communality - the possibility to share information at the level of communities; Specificity of our ties, based on particular interests and Virtuality, under the aspects of our different identities we can shape and assume in the online world.

"We are more connected for a reason" (p. 295) and the better use of our new skills, with the help of our brains connections we already developed during our long evolutive history, is an important asset for knowledge, both emotionally and socially oriented.