The Level Of Influence Of Similar Linguistic Skills

Divisive topics, especially politics and religion, are by definition loaded with subjectivity and have no worldwide consensus.

This creates an inherent threat in the participant, as the moral, religious, and political values start to lose ground, creating anxiety and extreme reactions, like unfriending or blocking the person having a different point of view.

Different moral values make the person view the discussion as a right versus wrong or good versus evil fight, in which it is natural to make an enemy out of the other person, who is now being looked at in a different light.

Always remember that your job, writing to a friend, is to entertain. That can mean revelling in the odd pratfall. So, don’t just write about the mundane and pleasant things, try to give them the whole picture and make them feel something.

• You are extending respect and friendship. Write quickly, and preferably by hand.
• You’ll want to calibrate what you write to your relationship both with the recipient and with the deceased. Make it personal.
• If you knew the deceased well, sharing a couple of warm memories will let the recipient feel there’s a shared bond.
• If you didn’t know the deceased, you can make respectful reference to what you knew of them.
• Use tact. Don’t tell the recipient how they should be feeling.
• If you’re finding it hard to know what to say, you can acknowledge that; but don’t harp on it.
• Avoid operatic, or competitive, expressions of grief.
• Acknowledge, but don’t belabour, the grief and pain they feel.
• Focus on the individual excellence of the deceased rather than the consequences of the loss itself.
• Be tactful of their religion even if you don’t believe in it. 

For clarity, stability and better mental health, meditation (or mindfulness) is a universally recognized training activity.

Breaks and time-outs lead to better productivity, as they allow the mind to form connections and help in creativity and even relationships.

• 53% of Americans lie in their profiles. Women tend to post younger photos of themselves and claim to be thinner, while men tend to lie about their careers.
• Even on apps known as being for "hook up", most females are looking for a genuine match and not a fling.
• Two-thirds of online daters have gone out with someone they were matched with.
• One-third of people who have used online dating have never actually gone on a date. 

• Relationships that begin online are nearly 30% more likely to break down than ones where couples met face-to-face first.
• 20% of committed relationships began online.
• Marriages from online couples are three times as likely to end in divorce.
• 17% of couples that were married in the last year met on a dating website. 

You may think it was your idea to keep your desk neat or speak up in a meeting, but your behavior was likely influenced by those in your network.

Once we understand social networks, we can use its power to shape workplaces for the better. You can turn an unhappy team into an innovative, collaborative one.

Your experiences in the world is not only a product of your own desires, actions, and thoughts, but also a product of the desires, actions, and thoughts of people around you.

The things that are seemingly personal to you are actually very strongly influenced by similar traits in other people. You do have agency. You can choose what to do. But you're also affected by what others are doing. Both are true.

Zipf's law is a mathematical probability that states that in a given set, the most frequently used data value (or word) is used twice as often as the next most common value. This is true in various statistical sets like income distribution in companies, internet traffic, phone calls received, and language.

One of the implications of this law is there are unconscious network forces and mathematical patterns governing our lives, with human beings just being nodes exchanging information.

When six to eight people are conversing at a dinner party, it is easy to focus on one conversation, but if the number is higher (say 15), then two-way conversations are more likely.

When groups get larger, the change is exponential, not linear, affecting one's social experience.

You have probably met a large number of friends through just a handful of people. Those are your superconnectors. Rekindle those friendships and ask them if there is anyone you should meet.

Don’t be interesting. Be interested.

• Listen to people and ask them to tell you more. 
• When they mention something you have in common, point it out.
• Be enthusiastic and encouraging.

There are three possible reasons why the ability to learn a language decreases at 18.

• Social changes: At 18, late teens typically graduate high school and may no longer have the time, opportunity or learning environment to study a second language.
• Interference: The rules of a first language may interfere with the ability to learn a second language.
• Continuing brain development: Changes in the brain that continue during the late teens and early 20s may make learning harder.

There are many examples of people who pick up a language later in life. Our ability to learn new vocabulary appears to remain constant, but most of us will not be able to master grammar like a native speaker.

After spending years building relationships with trolls and trying to understand them, journalist Ginger Gorman shares her findings in the the book Troll Hunting:

• They are not uneducated persons, that lack social skills and live in their parents' basement.They have partners, children, and full-time jobs.
• They show leadership skills as commanders of large trolling gatherings.
• They are socially intelligent and capable of to identifying users’ weaknesses with precision.

The absence of nonverbal feedback leads to an “empathy deficit,” and this is what sociopaths suffer from.

If someone says something negative in person and makes you cry, he/she will possibly feel uncomfortable. Unless they're psychopaths, your misery will generate an empathic response and lead them to have mercy. If someone tweets something negative and makes you cry, no amount of emojis can transmit the image of a crying person. If there is no social cue to evoke an empathic response, they might continue their negative assault.