After 20 years of work, Fowler and Christakis announced the way we are all connected! They mapped 4500 networks of people and confirmed what we already knew: that social relationships influence every sector of human function such as professional and family status, physical and mental health and people’s subjective happiness. Furthermore, the researchers pointed out that we are all connected in such a way that we interact even beyond the limits of our acquaintances.
For example, the odds of being happy increase by 15% if we have a social connection with one happy person. The good news though does not stop here. If our connection ia also connected to a happy person, whom we have never seen in our lives, the odds of us being happy increase by 10%. This result is impressive if one considers that an increase of 10.000 USD in one’s income attributes to an increase of just 2% of happiness.
This research was, for us, inspiring and motivating. Building a positive relationship in a person’s life not only has an impact on him but also his friends and the friends of his friends and the friends of his friend’s friends…
The challenge is to understand what these relationships are; their effect is definitely positive but in which ways do they bring all these positive effects in people’s lives?