

Social contagion: Conflicting ideas - amirmc
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/04/social-contagion

======
amirmc
> " ... the researchers found that the best predictor of whether someone would
> join Facebook was a subtly different factor: the number of distinct groups
> that an individual could link up with through the site. Most people have
> more than one social network: a group of one's old school friends, for
> instance, is likely to have little contact with one's work colleagues, who
> in turn won't have much to do with one's extended family. The more such
> groups were present on Facebook, the greater the probability that an
> individual would join."

This is fascinating given the recent discussions on identity, privacy etc.
Specifically, that the ability to interact with _different social circles_
through one site encouraged people to sign up.

Original paper is at:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/27/1116502109.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/03/27/1116502109.abstract)

