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, according to new research from the US.
A paper, entitled 'Violence is Like a Contagious Disease: The Spread of Violence Through Social Networks,' looked at the issue of young people and how they are more likely to attack someone compared to other age groups.
Professor Robert Bond, one of the researchers from Ohio state University who worked on the paper, said that the new study shows just how rampant violence can be.
"This study shows just how contagious violence can be.
Acts of violence can ricochet through a community, traveling through networks of friends," Professor Bond said in a recent interview.
Professor Bond said the research shows why the prevention of violence is so very important.
The US study looked at information from 6,000 young people aged 12 to 18, who all took part in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the 1990s.
The adolescents were asked how often in the past 12 months they had been in a serious physical fight, how often they hurt someone badly enough to need medical attention and how often they had pulled a knife or gun on someone.
They were 183 percent more like to have hurt someone badly, 140 percent more likely to have drawn a weapon and 48 percent more likely to have been in a serious fight, if they had a friend who had done something similar.
"We now have evidence that shows how important social relationships are to spreading violent behavior, just like they are for spreading many other kinds of attitudes and behaviors," Professor Bond said.
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