Data from digital fitness trackers combined with social network analyses reveal that one person's running habits can influence their friends' running habits. (Dreamstime)
Now here's a contagion that might not be so bad to encounter. A new analysis of the running habits of about 1.1 million people reveals that exercise is indeed contagious – though its communicability depends on who's spreading it.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, also reveal that certain relationships are better at spreading the running bug than others – and could have implications for the study of other social contagions, such as obesity and smoking.
