How limited visibility and divided attention constrain social contagion (2012)
| Venue: | In SocialCom |
| Citations: | 26 - 10 self |
BibTeX
@INPROCEEDINGS{Hodas12howlimited,
author = {Nathan Oken Hodas},
title = {How limited visibility and divided attention constrain social contagion},
booktitle = {In SocialCom},
year = {2012}
}
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Abstract
Abstract—How far and how fast does information spread in social media? Researchers have recently examined a number of factors that affect information diffusion in online social networks, including: the novelty of information, users ’ activity levels, who they pay attention to, and how they respond to friends’ recommendations. Using URLs as markers of information, we carry out a detailed study of retweeting, the primary mechanism by which information spreads on the Twitter follower graph. Our empirical study examines how users respond to an incoming stimulus, i.e., a tweet (message) from a friend, and reveals that dynamically decaying visibility, which is the increasing cognitive effort required for discovering and acting upon a tweet, combined with limited attention play dominant roles in retweeting behavior. Specifically, we observe that users retweet information when it is most visible, such as when it near the top of their Twitter feed. Moreover, our measurements quantify how a user’s limited attention is divided among incoming tweets, providing novel evidence that highly connected individuals are less likely to propagate an arbitrary tweet. Our study indicates that the finite ability to process incoming information constrains social contagion, and we conclude that rapid decay of visibility is the primary barrier to information propagation online. Index Terms—Twitter, User Interfaces, Statistical Analysis I.
Keyphrases
limited visibility attention constrain social contagion information spread primary barrier limited attention play dominant role user activity level social medium statistical analysis twitter feed index term twitter twitter follower graph user interface novel evidence empirical study online social network arbitrary tweet incoming stimulus information diffusion friend recommendation finite ability information propagation online detailed study user respond cognitive effort user limited attention information constrains social contagion primary mechanism rapid decay
