Sue--Genes and the Friends You Make

There is an interesting article in Tuesday's WSJ about social networking and heredity. Researchers drew their data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which is a survey among high school students(1994-1995) which looked at social and economic factors, and the physical state of the students. From there they narrowed the data down to 1,100 same sex twins, both identical and fraternal. The researchers noticed greater similarities in the identical twin's social structure--suggesting genes played a definite role. They also found that your genes may help determine not only how many people count you as a friend within the social network, but how many of your friends are friends among themselves. James Fowler, a political scientist, also has a theory that genetics may play a role in certain health conditions(obesity) and social networks may in turn influence behaviors such as smoking. Networks also affect the spread of ideas and there is an additional study suggesting an individual's happiness depends on the happiness of others in his or her social network.