Long ties that bridge socially separate regions of networks are critical for the spread of contagions, such as innovations or adoptions of new norms. Contrary to previous thinking, long ties have now been found to accelerate social contagions, even for behaviours that involve the social reinforcement of adoption by network neighbours.
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References
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This is a summary of: Eckles, D. et al. Long ties accelerate noisy threshold-based contagions. Nat. Hum. Behav. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01865-0 (2024).
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Long ties across networks accelerate the spread of social contagions. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01866-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01866-z
