Response to TedTalk

The Ted talk we watched in class was one of the more interesting ones I have viewed in a long time. One point that I was fascinated by was the connections we individuals have with so many people. Nicholas displayed many graphs to the audiences to show how people were connected. These graphs supported his idea of how human behaviors and ideas spread to people in the network. One statistic Nicholas presented proved that a person has a 45 percent higher chance of becoming obese if they have an obese friend. This statics made me realize how a person can change just by who they are surrounded by. Nicholas touched upon this stating that our minds try to conform to who we are surrounded by.  Nicholas used the example of how our idea of the norm body image can change, leading to changing the size of our bodies. As our minds change to conform to the idea of one body image, it creates a large network of people who all have the same body image.

Another point that was talked about was how there are different structures of social networks which create different implications on our lives. In order to understand this concept, Nicholas used the element Carbon and how this element can be used to created two different structures, ones structure will create graphite and the other structure will create diamond. Carbon is used in both compounds, just in a different configuration which forms a different product. This idea can be applied to humans. Humans display emotions that could communicate a feeling and possibly transfer that feeling to another person. It depends what emotion is being portrayed that affects the connections between the people in the network. Nicholas used the example of collective emotions. He explained how people with same emotions can spread what they are feeling to the people around them, forming a large connection of people with the same emotion. For example, a group of people who are angry with a rising social issue could transfer their emotions to other people, forming a network of people who are angry about the same social issue. Since the structure of this network revolves around anger, this network specifically could result in these people creating a riot. The idea of the different structures in each network dictates what the implication of the network is.

The last point I thought was very intriguing was the idea of how our genes could dictate what social network we create or are a part of. Since every human has a unique set of genes, there are so many different social networks that could be produced from the variety of genes between each individual. Nicholas used the example of how some people introduce their friends to other people and how some people don’t introduce their friends to other people. People who introduce their friends to other people will create a larger social network with more variety as opposed to someone who doesn’t introduce their friends to other people, which will result in smaller network. This also has to do with the idea of connecting different social networks. The idea of connecting social networks has to do based on a person genes which dictates whether or not they connect other networks together. The importance of this point is that we humans should be more aware of these networks and use them in a way that could be helpful. These networks tie a large amount of individuals together and if sustained could be a very useful tool in any community.

 

Leave a Reply