Super-organism

(...)To us [eles, investigadores de redes sociais], it is a very, very fundamental observation that things happening in a social space beyond your vision — events that occur or choices that are made by people you don't know — can cascade in a conscious or subconscious way through a network and affect you.(...)

It is one thing to observe the spread of phenomena through the network; it is another to take the next step and begin to identify a mechanism of spread.(...)

We are interested not in biological contagion, but in social contagion.(...)

Incidentally, some of these things also touch on very old philosophical and social science concerns, as I mentioned earlier, because they raise questions about free will. If my behaviors and my thoughts are determined not just by my own volition, but are determined by the behaviors and thoughts of other people to whom I am connected, and are even determined by the behaviors and thoughts of other people who I do not know and who are beyond my social horizon but who are connected to people to whom I am connected, it speaks to the issue of free will. Are my thinking and my behavior truly free, or are they constrained because I am part of a social network? To the extent that I am part of this human super-organism, does that reduce my individuality? And does this give us more or less insight into human behavior?(...)

Social networks are like the eye (via Arts & Letters Daily), por falar em 'manifs' e outros vírus.