Alex Wright

Hooking up, over and out

February 7, 2005

Clive Thompson points to James Moody's study of teenage sexual networking in a rural midwestern high school.

The collective behavior appears to conform to the classic social network distribution pattern: most members are concentrated in a broad central cluster linked by several prominent "connectors"; while a smaller number of outliers inhabit insular, more closely bonded groups.

Which is to say, the study confirms what anyone who went to high school already knows:

Either you belonged to that enormous, borg-like structure -- about half the students -- or you belonged to a very small, sealed-off network of three or fewer students. There was almost no-one in the middle. (via Caterina)

File under: Ephemera

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