I rest my FREAK’N case! Well, actually, i’m not that smart and certainly this is a loose stretch to use the term “validate” but it is nice to have the New England Journal of Medicine validate my notion of social influence as noted below in today’s post:
An interesting and somewhat shocking study published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows that the chance of becoming obese increased by 57% if a person had a friend who became obese in a given period!
Similar with other vices like smoking and drinking, we are easily influenced by the people around us. Social networking is just a new medium but the psychology behind peer influence is still same.
To make matters worse, obesity spreads up to 3 degrees of separation. According to Nicholas Christakis, a physician and Harvard University professor who headed the study:
We know that people are influenced by their friends. But what was innovative about our study is the fact that people tend to be influenced by friends of friends of friends.
This is on top of the sedentary lifestyle of many active members of social networking sites.
When i posted about the tangible influence of peers and behavior modification, i was merely pulling from my anecdotal experience. But now i feel even more strongly that where change:healthcare is headed will provide a DRAMATIC means for employers to engage and enable their employees to become better healthcare consumers and reducing the need to force nor apply top-down pressure but rather by giving people the objective, portable tools that they have been asking to access. People can make smarter, more informed decisions when given the tools, relationships, and platform to influence each other. Remember that a company’s best communication and influence tool has been and will continue to be the infamous “office grapevine” and “water-cooler conversations.” Which i would propose is the precursor to Facebook and Linkedin.
Heh… I’m just a mess-o-conflicting analogies these days. Of course nothing is ever as black and white as we might want them to be. But the NEJM study certainly does point to some rather compelling data and outcomes…
Christakis said the perception change can be either conscious or unconscious.
Beggs said the “tide of information” a person receives about acceptable behaviors usually has to be backed by a support frame to have a significant impact.
“In order not to exhibit certain behaviors, you have to be able to go against the tide of information,” Beggs said.
