Impact of Human Activity Patterns on the Dynamics of Information Diffusion
J. L. Iribarren and E. Moro
Physical Review Letters 103, 038702 (2009) [pdf]
Abstract
We study the impact of human activity patterns on information diffusion. To this end we ran a viral email experiment involving 31 183 individuals in which we were able to track a specific piece of information through the social network. We found that, contrary to traditional models, information travels at an unexpectedly slow pace. By using a branching model which accurately describes the experiment, we show that the large heterogeneity found in the response time is responsible for the slow dynamics of information at the collective level. Given the generality of our result, we discuss the important implications of this finding while modeling human dynamical collective phenomena.
Press coverage:
- ‘Infectious’ people spread memes across the web, New Scientist (12/08/09)
- Email hoaxes are like viruses, The Inquirer (10/08/09)
- The flow of viral video, ABC News (8/08/09)
- New model for social marketing campaigns details why some information ‘goes viral’, PhysOrg (6/08/09)
- Los perezosos frenan los rumores en Internet, ABC.es (14/8/09)
Related posts:
- Information diffusion epidemics in social networks José Luis Iribarren, Esteban Moro arxiv:0706.0641 [pdf] Abstract: The dynamics...
- The speed and reach of forwarded emails, rumors, and hoaxes in electronic social networks We have just published an experimental/theoretical work on the...
- The Network Laws of Viral Marketing J. L. Iribarren and E. Moro Enviado (2007) [pdf] Abstract...
- Relationship mining Each day trillions of emails, phone calls, comments on...
- Numerical schemes for continuum models of reaction-diffusion systems subject to internal noise Esteban Moro Physical Review E (Rapid Communication) 70, 045102 (2004). [pdf]...
My name is Esteban Moro Egido and I am a researcher at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. My field of research are complex systems. The fact that the systems under study are complex does not mean that its behavior cannot be understood or anticipated. I believe research must be interdisciplinary and close to real life problems and because of that, I do research in financial markets or viral marketing (complex enough!).
[...] have just published an experimental/theoretical work on the speed of information diffusion in social networks in Physical Review Letters. Specifically [...]
Pingback