Clustered Networks Spread Behavior Change Faster | Wired Science | Wired.com
Unlike infectious diseases and news, behavior change spreads faster through online networks that have many close connections instead of many distant ties. Redundancy is key, as people are more likely to engage in a behavior if they see many others doing it.
“There has been a lot of theory about the difference between information and behavior spreading,” said economic sociologist Damon Centola of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of the study published Sept. 3 in Science. “We’ve assumed that they are the same, but you can imagine that behavior is not really like that, that you need to be convinced.”