I'm curious, in your experience, (and I am curious - not being argumentative), how socially connected do you find the citation graph to be? A while back, I was

I'm curious, in your experience, (and I am curious - not being argumentative), how socially connected do you find the citation graph to be? A while back, I was mapping innovation diffusion, as indicated by papers and patents and hiring company's R&D budgets and ROI on said investment and the like, and I was surprised at how much innovation spreads through folks that know one another, as opposed to papers that anyone could (in theory) read. I have to guess that people would similarly cite papers of people they know (maybe even of the same lab?). Do you think that has any effect on the score that you are pointing me towards?