I just got back from the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Adolescence in Philadelphia. Like most meetings of researchers, this gathering was much like an ant nest. People who hadn’t seen each other would come together in little groups, touch antenna to see where and how the others had been, and move along, sharing their news. It all seemed random and scattered. But, like an ant nest, the researchers were building something much larger than any one individual could see: a scientific understanding of adolescence. I’ve been attending these meetings since the first gathering 27 years ago in Montreal, where just a few of us met in a hotel room and thought maybe there were enough folks studying adolescents to have our own organization, separate from the larger Society for Research in Child Development. We’ve grown. Our current meeting was thousands strong.
In their book “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives’’ they argue that our social networks actually comprise a “super-organism.’’ Our lives take shape not just via those we know, our friends and relations, but through their friends and relations, even if we never meet those people. ‘Connected’ offers a new way of thinking about social networks and the world - The Boston Globe
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