How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference

I am currently reading the international number one bestselling book called The Tipping Point  by Malcom Gladwell. Gladwell covers many topics throughout his book based on connections and coincidence within people and all worldly occurrences. In one part of his book he tells the reader to go down a list of 250 surnames pulled out of the Manhattan phone book and give themselves a point for every name that is shared by someone they know. This was supposed to be a good and simple way to estimate how many friends and acquaintances one might have. I went down the list and I ended up counting roughly 21 surnames. I read on and Gladwell revealed that he had given that test to dozens of people in their late teens through early twenties. He did the math and averaged out about 20.96, so each person in that class knew 21 people with the those last names. I was shocked to have gotten the same score as on Gladwell's data. This proved to me that the world is somehow connected in some way and has more in common than one would think. Who knew the world could really be such a small world? Ever since i have started reading this book it has really made me think about how fast and easily things can be spread or connected. For example, in the first chapter of his book Gladwell talks about an epidemic of syphilis that broke out in the mid 1990's in Baltimore. The cause of the break out was the increase in use of crack which lead to risky sexual behavior. An increase in sexually transmitted diseases would be the last thing one would think to happen due to the increase of drug use, and yet it was the first to occur. Basically, from what I have read so far Gladwell seems to have a point. How things can go from being one way to drastically changing and turning into a completely different way. I like this book, I can relate to his explanations for the constant, unexpected, and dramatic changes in scenery and ideas.