Experts have found that giving up smoking is likely to bolster your social life, as smokers are increasingly being edged out of social circles.
Researchers analysed smoking behaviours in a social network of 12,067 densely interconnected people.
They found that whole groups of people tend to give up smoking tandem, and that those who continue to smoke form 'cliques' that gradually shift from the centre of the social network to the fringes.
James Fowler of the University of California San Diego, which carried out the research alongside Harvard Medical School, commented: "In the early 1970s, it was completely irrelevant if you smoked.
"You could be central in your circle and be connected to lots of other people who were similarly central. You could be popular, in other words.
"By the 2000s, it had become highly relevant - if you smoked, you would, in some sense, be shunned."
The research, which is published in the New England Journal of Medicine, also revealed that the reverse is true - that when people give up smoking, they tend to move back to a more central position within their social circle.
Experts have found that giving up smoking is likely to bolster your social life, as smokers are increasingly being edged out of social circles.
