Nicholas A. Christakis Quotes

United States, Sociologist
May 7, 1962

Nicholas A. Christakis is a Greek-American sociologist and physician known for his research on social networks and on the socioeconomic, biosocial, and evolutionary determinants of behavior, health, and longevity. He is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, where he directs the Human Nature Lab. He is also the Co-Director of the Yale Institute for Network Science.

Also known as Physician, Scientist

There are very fundamental reasons we live our lives in social networks and if we really understood the role they're playing in our society we would take better care of social networks and find ways to take advantage of their power to improve our society.

Nicholas A. Christakis
Social networks are these intricate things of beauty, and they're so elaborate and so complex and so ubiquitous that one has to ask what purpose they serve.

Nicholas A. Christakis

It used to be thought that our genes were historically immutable and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.

Nicholas A. Christakis
Everyday interactions we have with other people are definitely contagious, in terms of happiness.

Nicholas A. Christakis
What constrains or enables the capacity of human beings to work in groups is not so much the technology, but rather the capacity of the human brain to have and monitor social interactions.

Nicholas A. Christakis
It's fashionable to speak about vulnerable populations in medicine and public policy, but it's harder to find a more vulnerable population than those who are dying.

Nicholas A. Christakis
I like to have met someone in real life before being their Facebook friend.

Nicholas A. Christakis
- Real
- Friend
- Facebook
People have just assumed that... if we call our Facebook acquaintances our friends, we must be influenced by them, too. But we're not.

Nicholas A. Christakis

We cannot understand our humanity just by studying individuals.

Nicholas A. Christakis
My entire youth was spent with an incredibly ill parent... I don't think you can grow up that way and not be marked by that experience.

Nicholas A. Christakis