So, New Year's day I read one of the many unread books on my kindle. What follows is my highlights on my kindle for the book: The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters. I BOLD highlights that I found really interesting.
“John was rich in one important way: he had amassed a committed circle of friends, most of whom knew each other and regularly crossed paths— a feature of the most powerful and effective social networks.” 1
“Digital networks and screen media have the power to make the world seem much smaller. But when it comes to certain life-changing transformations, they’re no match for face-to-face.” 2
“If we don’t interact regularly with people face-to-face, the odds are we won’t live as long, remember information as well, or be as happy as we could have been.” 3
“women’s tendency to put a premium on their social
connections is one of the main reasons they live longer.” 4
“Research shows that playing cards once a week or meeting friends every
Wednesday night at Starbucks adds as many years to our lives as taking beta
blockers or quitting a pack-a-day smoking habit.” 5
“Sardinian villages are the only places in the world where men live nearly as long as women. Everywhere else there is a gender gap in lifespan of about five to seven years.” 6
“Steve Cole and his team at UCLA discovered that social contact switches on and off the genes that regulate our immune response to cancer and the rate of tumor growth.” 7
“For example, if you’re surrounded by a tightly connected circle of friends who regularly gather to eat and share gossip, you’ll not only have fun but you’re also likely to live an average of fifteen years longer than a loner.” 8
“a quarter of Britons of all ages feel emotionally unconnected to others, and a third do not feel connected to the wider community.” 9
“The evidence tells us that about a third of us now feel lonely, sometimes acutely.” 10
“any given time, twenty to forty percent of older adults report feeling lonely, and from five to seven percent report feeling intense or persistent loneliness,” 11
“Feeling lonely is as painful as being wildly hungry or thirsty.” 12
“Like physical pain or hunger, loneliness effectively says, Hey, you! If you
don’t find your people (or they don’t find you), you’re a goner.” 13
“Feeling lonely exaggerates the inflammation and reactivity to stress that are linked to heart disease while interfering with our ability to retain facts and solve problems, according to work by the British epidemiologist Andrew Steptoe.” 14
“John Cacioppo and his colleagues have found that loneliness drives up the cortisol and blood pressure levels that damage the internal organs in both sexes, and at all ages and stages of adult life.” 15
“Given that the only person many Americans say they can trust is their spouse, it turns out that many of us are just one person away from having no one at all.” 16
“In a study of nearly seven thousand older people in Finland, epidemiologists found that one of the most powerful predictors of loneliness was living alone; when they followed up four years later, the lonely folks— no matter their state of health to begin with— were 31 percent more likely to have died in the meantime than people who felt intimately connected.” 17
“To begin with, the right kind of social contact (hostility doesn’t work) instructs the body to secrete more endogenous opiates, which act as local painkillers, and fewer hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and corticosteroids— the body’s often destructive answer to immediate stressors— which can wage an ongoing war on our tissues and our physical resilience.” 18
“Socially isolated female lab rats developed eighty-four times as many breast cancer tumors as female rats who lived in groups. Eighty-four times! Published at the end of 2009, their study drily relates this extraordinary finding: ‘Isolation increased the number of discrete tumor masses by 135%. Among isolates, tumors were more widespread, developing in three if not all four mammary quadrants.’” 19
“when it comes to living a long life after cancer, friends were the most protective social bond of all.” 20
“First, it’s our weaker connections who are often most influential when we need something concrete— a new job, a new doctor, a new apartment.” 21
“Weak ties offer bridges to novel information.” 22
“Even though the provincial government tried to formalize hiring practices in the late seventies, hoping to make access to a highly sought-after civil service job less a matter of who you know than what you know, the sociologist Simon Langlois discovered that almost half (42.7 percent) the employees had found their jobs through personal contacts.” 23
“Whereas 84 percent of professionals, managers, and administrative staff found their positions through acquaintances, only 19 percent of blue-collar workers had.” 24
“There is evidence that turning to the Internet for social connection may stir up feelings of isolation.” 25
“Almost everywhere else, including on the Italian mainland, there are six female centenarians for every male.” 26
“Currently, ten times as many men in Villagrande live past the age of one hundred as men who live elsewhere.” 27
“The extraordinary social support network that allows its seniors to live well beyond their “best by” date could well be tied to how hard it has always been to get to these villages. There’s an ocean to cross, then miles and miles of macchia, or pastured scrubland. Finally, barricaded behind a forbidding mountain range, the villages of the Blue Zone rise into view.” 28
“A study of nearly three thousand Danish twins born at the turn of the twentieth century found that genes answer 25 percent of the longevity question, at most.” 29
“To properly “age in place” as Teresa has, you don’t need to live in a literal village but near a group of like-minded people who create the intimacy of one. Research by Harvard professors Subu Subramanian, Felix Elwert, and Nicholas Christakis shows that widows (and widowers) live longer if they choose to live in neighborhoods filled with other widows.” 30
“Yet Loma Linda’s residents live an average of six years longer than other Americans, in large part due to the social bonds among the Seventh-day Adventists who live there. Their support systems and diet, combined with a state-of-the-art medical center, mean that the residents live longer there than they do in neighboring towns.” 31
“The average thirty-year-old Adventist man from Loma Linda lives 7.3 years longer than male citizens elsewhere in the United States; the average Adventist woman lives an average of 4.4 years longer than other American women (and women already have a six-year head start).” 32
“Just as people who are married have more sex than single people (proximity counts for something, after all), people who are solitary are deprived of the daily pats, hugs, and eye contact that primates have been communicating with for at least sixty million years.” 33
“Oxytocin and vasopressin, two neuropeptides that are secreted into the bloodstream when we form and maintain meaningful relationships, help damp down stress and heal wounds. A number of animal experiments show that oxytocin boosts immunity and recovery,” 34
“So what does promote health and longevity, according to Friedman and Martin? Conscientiousness and hard work, combined with a large, active network of family, friends, and community ties— people whom you help and who help you. If you want to live a long, healthy life, worrying and working hard won’t kill you.” 35
“That feeling of belonging had to come from interacting with people you really know, in what the researchers called “naturally occurring” social relationships. The longevity-inducing contact didn’t come from support groups, hired minions, or non-human sources, whether digital devices, a higher power, or pets.” 36
“Religious people are more likely to pay that tax, surveys tell us. They volunteer more time to community service, offer more spare change to homeless people they pass on the street, and donate more money to organized charity and more blood to blood banks than secular folks do. 5 Compared to atheists, their altruism is amplified if, right before they’re asked to pitch in, they’re somehow reminded of God (or of some supernatural “watcher”), which erases their anonymity, according to experiments by Canadian psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff.” 37
“Pentland and his team have shown that the more people mirror each other in conversation, the more they say they trust each other.” 38
“Close physical proximity is crucial to emotional contagion.” 39
“New Mexico, managed to persuade eighteen lap dancers in Albuquerque to participate in a study designed to track their earnings against their menstrual cycles. This wasn’t a huge sample but the dancers worked long hours, so Miller and his two colleagues were able to map 5,300 lap dances over two months’ time. The experimenters had never met the performers, who were given ID numbers to preserve their anonymity and a confidential mailbox where they could drop off their completed questionnaires. When the researchers mapped where a dancer was in her cycle against her earnings per five-hour shift, they discovered an intriguing pattern. The male patrons unwittingly selected ovulating women more often than they chose women who were menstruating. The ovulating women also seemed to be earning bigger tips per dance. In the fertile phase of their cycles, the dancers earned $ 354 per five-hour shift, or $ 70 per hour. Menstruating women earned $ 185 per shift, or $ 35 per hour, exactly half that amount. (Meanwhile, between the two phases of their cycles, the women earned $ 264.)” 40
“’The most striking finding is that fertility rises dramatically for both men and women after their sister has a child— yet the birth of a child to a brother appears to have no effect on an individual’s fertility,’” 41
“Over time, health problems such as obesity and alcoholism seemed to travel from person to person within identifiable cliques. In other words, becoming dangerously overweight could be contagious within real social networks, much the way a bad cold gets passed along with the bean salad at a potluck supper. Here, then, was a paradox. On the one hand, socializing with friends can help you fight off loneliness and chronic illness. But on the other, close relationships, especially to certain people, can trash your self-control, making you fatter than you would have been if you’d been left to your own devices.” 42
“We’re drawn to people with whom we share matching clusters of nucleotides.” 43
“Neuroimaging studies confirm that ostracism creates the same level of activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula as does physical distress; the neural signs of social pain look a lot like the signals created by physical pain.” 44
“‘Without sustained social interaction, the human brain may become as impaired as one that has incurred a traumatic head injury,’” 45
“Banter— and specifically banter about the child’s experiences— is what links family meals in childhood to boosted achievement later on, according to Harvard psychologist Catherine” 46
“Family meals trump almost every other activity— including reading books and playing with toys— when it comes to jumpstarting a child’s vocabulary, according to a 2001 study.” 47
“Eating together is simply a focused— often the only— way many parents connect with their kids; the more engaged and less embattled the parenting, the stronger the connection between eating together and reduced rates of depression, delinquency, and substance abuse later.” 48
“research confirms that as your friends change, so do your ideas about what’s acceptable, whether it’s what you’re eating, drinking, smoking, or putting up your nose.” 49
“’Every additional hour of TV exposure among toddlers corresponded to a future decrease in classroom engagement, less success at math, increased victimization by classmates, a more sedentary lifestyle, higher consumption of junk food, and ultimately a higher body mass index,’” 50
“As my brother Steve notes in The Language Instinct, there has never been a feral child— a child raised without human interaction— who has learned to speak.” 51
“No matter how many students are studied and (with the exception of one fourth-grade program) regardless of the software used, laptops in the classroom do not improve students’ achievement.” 52
“Being assigned to a more effective teacher can raise a student’s math scores by as much as 50 percentile points over three years, according to statisticians William Sanders” 53
“(in the mid 1800s most Europeans were dead before they hit forty).” 54
“’The single person is more likely to be wrecked on his voyage than the lives joined together in matrimony.’ As long as the lives are peaceably joined, that is— an important proviso that I’ll get to in a moment.” 55
“In 1957 an American survey revealed that four out of five people believed that anyone who chose to be single was ‘sick, neurotic, or immoral.’” 56
“For many men, their one and only intimate friend is their wife. Meanwhile, their wives are more likely to surround themselves with a tight circle of close friends and family. This “village” is not only indispensable to their own health and happiness but provides a protective umbrella for the men they marry.” 57
“In The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt quotes a study showing that of two hundred utopian communes founded in nineteenth-century America, only 6 percent of the secular ones survived, compared to 39 percent of the religious ones. The groups with the highest rates of survival required their members to visibly alter their behavior or appearance to show that they belonged, by changing their hair, dress, or diet, or by giving up alcohol, meat, or tobacco.” 58
“Eighty-one percent of the online daters had fibbed, inaccurately reporting their basic details in ways they hoped wouldn’t be detected (women made themselves 8.5 pounds thinner, on average).” 59
“Research shows that when cardholders (who on average own more than five credit cards) are struggling to pay down their debts, they’re more likely to pay the companies whose employees try to form an emotional connection with them.” 60
“Oxytocin is one of those neuropeptides, and it has become one of the stars of the neuroscience show in recent years because it has been found to grease the brain’s wheels of attachment and trust.” 61
“If young men sprayed oxytocin up their noses before playing an investment game, they were more willing to take social risks. More specifically, those who were infused with oxytocin handed over more money to an investment partner compared to men whose nasal spray contained a placebo. What’s the significance of this? Oxytocin facilitated their trust.” 62
“Other experiments showed that when people connect— and especially when they touch each other— oxytocin is released, which damps down their stress and enables them to trust each other. We’re not necessarily talking about what Marvin Gaye called sexual healing. A simple handshake, a pat, a fist-bump, a friendly nudge, or a high five does the trick.” 63
“One 2010 study led by Harvard’s Isaac Kohane shows that the farther scientists are from each other geographically, the less influential their work is on their discipline, and on society. Indeed, the medical studies cited most often by scientists are more likely to be the work of researchers who work together in the very same building, within two hundred meters of each other.” 64
“The same goes for your likelihood of surviving heart attacks, strokes, HIV/ AIDS, or cancer. People with the most integrated social lives— meaning those who have overlapping relationships among friends, family, sports and other recreational or religious pursuits— have the best prognoses.” 65
“programs that promote face-to-face conversations and interactive reading between parent and child have had more than twice the impact on the language and literacy skills of kids from impoverished backgrounds than laptop programs have had.” 66
“’Recent studies show that the single most important factor in determining a student’s achievement isn’t the color of his skin or where she comes from, but who the child’s teacher is.’” 67
1. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 4). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
2. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 5-6). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
3. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 6). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
4. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 7). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
5. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 7). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
6. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 7-8). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
7. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 9). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
8. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 10). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
9. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 11). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
10. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 12). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
11. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 13). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
12. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 13). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
13. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 13). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
14. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 13). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
15. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 13). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
16. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 16). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
17. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 17). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
18. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 21). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
19. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 26). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
20. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 28). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
21. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 36). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
22. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 37). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
23. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 38-40). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
24. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 40). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
25. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 41). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
26. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 44). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
27. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 45). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
28. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 47). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
29. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 50). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
30. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 54). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
31. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 58). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
32. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 58). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
33. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 62). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
34. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 62). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
35. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 64). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
36. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 66). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
37. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 71). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
38. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 77-78). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
39. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 80). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
40. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 81). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
41. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 83). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
42. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 91-92). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
43. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 93). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
44. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 101). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
45. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 101). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
46. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 107). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
47. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 110). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
48. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 113). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
49. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 117). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
50. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 157). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
51. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 158). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
52. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 191). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
53. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 193). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
54. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 203). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
55. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 203). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
56. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 205). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
57. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 210). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
58. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (pp. 220-221). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
59. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 223). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
60. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 257). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
61. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 262). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
62. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 263). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
63. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 263). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
64. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 268). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
65. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 269). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
66. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 277). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.
67. Pinker, Susan (2014-09-04). The Village Effect: Why Face-to-face Contact Matters (p. 278). Atlantic Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.