One of the few benefits to emerge from this pandemic is that the world’s population has been given a crash course in complexity. If nothing else, many people may have learned why it makes sense to plot infection rates on a logarithmic scale, and a few may even have learned to use the word ‘exponentially’ in its true sense, rather than as a synonym for ‘a lot’.
I hope this proves an enduring lesson. Because, in truth, very little in life can be understood properly without first understanding such concepts, since barely anything involving humanity changes in a linear way.
Behaviour is contagious, and much of what we do results from unconscious mimicry
The reason change may happen slowly, then fast, then more slowly — before sometimes reversing — is because the adoption of new ideas and behaviours spreads much like a virus: by contagion. You will see similar ‘sigmoid’ patterns in everything from drink-driving behaviour, to attitudes to homosexuality, to the use of new technology.
Behaviour is contagious because we catch it from other people.
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