Do your friends influence your taste? →
The Harvard researchers tracked college students’ Facebook relationships and measured how taste in music, movies and books spreads through social networks. It turns out that the degree to which your friends’ tastes and yours are connected has more to do with how you became friends in the first place than the force of that allegiance later on.
When it comes to taste, “peer influence is virtually nonexistent,” said Kevin Lewis, a Harvard sociology graduate student who co-authored the study. Lewis cautioned that the experiences of college students on Facebook may not apply to everyone in all circumstances, but the results offer a sobering counterpoint to the conventional wisdom on the ubiquity of taste diffusion. “The extent to which friends’ preferences actually rub off on each other is minimal,” he said.
The one exception the study found is fans of jazz and classical music.
(Source: twitter.com)
