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
\%retweeting behavior is constrained by a few simple principles. the "principle
of least effort" combined with limited attention plays a dominant role 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 stream.
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.
%0 Generic
%1 Hodas2012How
%A Hodas, Nathan O.
%A Lerman, Kristina
%B ASE/IEEE International Conference on Social Computing
%D 2012
%K twitter social-networks information-diffusion
%T How Visibility and Divided Attention Constrain Social Contagion
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2736
%X 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
\%retweeting behavior is constrained by a few simple principles. the "principle
of least effort" combined with limited attention plays a dominant role 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 stream.
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.
@misc{Hodas2012How,
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
\%retweeting behavior is constrained by a few simple principles. the "principle
of least effort" combined with limited attention plays a dominant role 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 stream.
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.}},
added-at = {2019-06-10T14:53:09.000+0200},
archiveprefix = {arXiv},
author = {Hodas, Nathan O. and Lerman, Kristina},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/29eb44ef63b76ffe37d91b333b230b6ad/nonancourt},
booktitle = {ASE/IEEE International Conference on Social Computing},
citeulike-article-id = {10669034},
citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2736},
citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://arxiv.org/pdf/1205.2736},
day = 10,
eprint = {1205.2736},
interhash = {566517a26ee2a4f9529a48e058a605d8},
intrahash = {9eb44ef63b76ffe37d91b333b230b6ad},
keywords = {twitter social-networks information-diffusion},
month = may,
posted-at = {2012-05-15 09:07:46},
priority = {2},
timestamp = {2019-07-31T12:36:13.000+0200},
title = {{How Visibility and Divided Attention Constrain Social Contagion}},
url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.2736},
year = 2012
}