but actually, the kinds of social networks that james fowler, my coauthor, and i are interested iaree real olfashioned social networks that human beings have been making actually for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. so i have friends, i have relatives, i have neighbors, i have colleagues and coworkers, and they in turn have relatives and friends and colleagues and coworkers, and as a result of that, we assemble ourselves into these very ornate, almost baroque structures. they look like tangled christmas tree lights-- you know, these incredibly intricate structures where every light might be a person and the wires represent connections. and we'll assemble ourselves into these very expansive, elaborate, and complex structures, and then we proceed to live out our lives embedded in these structures, such that i'm connected to the people i know directly, and they are in turn connected to still other people, whare in turn connected to still other people. and as a result of this, i come to be indirectly connected to strangers, people i don't know, and it turns out that cau