Good morning. Today we're thinking about the way that technology is influencing our social structures and the way we interact with one another.
早上好。今天我们将思考科技是怎样影响我们的社会结构的，以及怎样影响我们与别人互动的方式。
Humans, as we know, have always lived in groups; without this arrangement, our species would have died out long ago.
正如我们所知，人类是群居动物，若非如此设定，我们早就灭绝了。
But now, the way we see and define our group is changing.
但现在，我们看待群体，定义群体的方式正在发生改变。
I'd like to start by mentioning the research of American sociologist Mark Granovetter in 1973.
我想先提一下美国社会学家马克·格兰诺维特在1973年的研究。
It was Granovetter who first coined the term 'weak-ties', which he used to refer to people's loose acquaintances - in other words, friends-of-friends.
格兰诺威特是第一个造出“弱连接”一词的人，他用此词来指代人们不太亲密的相识——换句话说，就是“朋友的朋友”。
His research showed that weak-ties had a significant effect on the behaviour and choices of populations.
他的研究表明，“弱连接”对于人们的行为和选择有重要影响。
And this influence was something highly important in the fields of information science and politics, and as you can imagine, marketing also.
其影响在信息科学领域及政治领域非常重要，你们也能猜到，市场营销领域中也如此。
So, these friends-of-friends, people we might spend time with at social or work gatherings, might not be like us but they can still have a positive influence because we share the same sort of interests.
这些“朋友的朋友”，我们可能会在社交聚会或工作聚会与之相处的人，可能和我们一点都不像，但他们仍然能产生积极影响，因为我们共享利益。
That's enough to make a connection, and this connection can turn out to be more beneficial than we might suspect.
这对于建立关系而言已经足够，而且这种关系往往比我们想象中更有益。
An example of this, an example of how the connection can influence us, is when our weak-ties get in touch and pass on details about job they think might be suitable for us.
举个例子，一个关系如何影响我们的例子：我们的“弱关系”在发现有工作可能合适我们时，会联系我们，告诉我们一些相关信息。
Well, since Granovetter first came up with this theory, his work has been cited in over 19,000 papers.
自从格兰诺维特最初提出此理论以来，超过19000份论文都引用过他的成果。
Some of these studies have looked at how weak-tie networks are useful to us in other ways, and one thing that seems to improve as a result of weak-tie influence is our health.
一些研究探索了“弱关系网”在其它方面对我们有多大用处。人们发现，在“弱关系”的影响下，有一点得到了提升—我们的健康。