New article about the emotional diffusion within a network:

Alone in the Crowd: The Structure and Spread of Loneliness in a Large Social Network

The discrepancy between an individual’s perceived social isolation (ie., loneliness) and the number of connections in their social network is well documented. Yet, few details are known about the placement of loneliness within, or the spread of loneliness through, social networks. Using data from the Framingham Heart Study, we show that loneliness occurs in clusters within social networks, extends up to three degrees of separation, and is disproportionately represented at the periphery of social networks. In addition, loneliness appears to spread through a contagious process even though lonely individuals are moved closer to the edge of social networks over time. The spread of loneliness is stronger for friends than family members and stronger for women than for men. The results advance our understanding of the broad social forces involved and suggest that efforts to reduce loneliness in our society may benefit by aggressively targeting the people in the periphery to help repair their social networks and to create a protective barrier that can keep the whole network from unraveling.