Social Networks and Happiness

Social Networks are ubiquitous.... and pervasive.... we all know that.... Somehow though, we are now discovering the role they play in more and more aspects of our lives.... here is  an excerpt from a WebMD article on Happiness...

"How important are social networks to your happiness? Perhaps even more important than you realized. A recent 20-year study of more than 4,000 people showed that happiness is influenced not just by your immediate friends and family. The happiness of a friend of a friend of a friend -- someone you’ve never even met -- can also influence your happiness. It turns out that happiness can spread through social networks, like a virus."

http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/why-youre-not-happy?page=3

Kidding apart... I have a theory about why they have suddenly become so important... I think it has to do with our image of organizations.... (I am borrowing the phrase from a book titled similarly)... all these years we were happy describing our organizations as hierarchies.... they seemed to work quite well for the work we were doing... I mean all enterprises.... public and private sector....

but the times have really changed....what they say about the environment.... volatility, and complexity, speed of change etc.... all those terms we have heard so often now, that they have become cliches.... those terms have become real now.... and all of us are feeling their effects....

The structures of old ....the hierarchies with centralized control paradigms....are no longer able to respond to that reality.... it is as if their ability to generate value is exhausted.... As the world becomes more complex, we need correspondingly complex structures to respond appropriately.... at all levels.... we need more complex cognitive structures for sure.... structures such as hierarchies become unwieldy with increasing complexity.... that leaves us no choice but to recognize structures that are more appropriate.... that is where networks come in....

I do not believe in all or nothing ways of thinking.... hierarchies are appropriate for some domains.... and will be around.... there are certain domains within any enterprise which will benefit from structured way of working... however there are certain aspects of an enterprise.... (This needs a more detailed discussion)....which have no choice but to move to more organic... non-hierarchical approaches...

Of course social networks have always been around.... now we know that we must acknowledge and nurture them as well.... for Cognition (Sense making, knowing, intelligence), Innovation, Cooperation, Learning... almost all aspects where sociality dominates....particularly when it comes to those challenges that we face which cannot be put in neat boxes.... or responded to with conventional command and control structures.... we must then defer to the network or even some more fluid structures which will evade neat analysis...

this is a fascinating topic for sure... there is more unsaid...

but closing out here with where we started this post..... social networks and happiness! ... perhaps what that means is that our efforts to deal with our world are too much for any one person.... only with the help of our social network can we deal with it effectively enough to be stress free....and happy.....hmmm....