Are we products of our communities?

Primates are social creatures and spend a great deal of time managing relationships and alliances. The large brains of our species, Homo sapiens, have allowed us to develop particularly complex relationships with other members of our species. In fact, our genetic programming makes the influence of our peers almost impossible to resist, a recent study reveals.

With more than 7-billion people living on Earth, we have used technology to build complex social networks, culminating in the relatively recent advent of social media sites such as Facebook. Whereas the first humans would only have socialised with people in their immediate geographical vicinity, humans today can be part of social groups across the globe.

A recent study reported on the ScienceNews website has revealed that even the often superficial relationships formed online can influence one’s thinking.

The study showed that Facebook users who were told that their contacts had voted in a local election, were more likely to vote themselves. This was in contrast with users who were merely urged to vote via a notification, as well as users who received no message at all.

You could say that we are genetically programmed to be sensitive to the behaviour of our peers, and to respond to it accordingly. This gives us a new understanding of the power that social media holds, not to mention the more traditional powers of print and television media.

Although our hominid ancestors did not have Facebook, they too would have been social creatures, and this would have contributed to their evolutionary success. For example, living in groups can help defend against predators. Groups can also be more efficient than individuals at discovering and defending sources of food.