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Modeling users' activity on twitter networks: validation of Dunbar's number
Bruno Gonçalves1, Nicola Perra, Alessandro Vespignani
1School of Informatics and Computing, Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, United States of America.
Plos One
|August 10, 2011
Summary
Social media and mobile devices do not remove human communication limits. Online social networks, like Twitter, confirm Dunbar's number, showing cognitive limits on stable relationships persist online.
Area of Science:
- Social Sciences
- Cognitive Science
- Communication Studies
Background:
- Microblogging and mobile devices are increasingly integrated into daily life.
- These technologies may alter or remove human cognitive and biological communication constraints.
- Dunbar's number posits a limit on stable social relationships.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether online platforms like Twitter remove cognitive constraints on social relationships.
- To test the applicability of Dunbar's number in the context of large-scale social media data.
- To analyze the 'economy of attention' in online social interactions.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a large dataset of Twitter conversations over six months.
- Involved 1.7 million individuals.
- Testing theoretical cognitive limits on social relationships (Dunbar's number).
Main Results:
- Twitter data align with Dunbar's prediction of a maximum of 100-200 stable relationships per user.
- The 'economy of attention' is constrained by cognitive and biological factors online, as predicted by Dunbar's theory.
- A proposed model incorporating finite priority queuing and time resources successfully reproduces observed social behavior.
Conclusions:
- Online social networking platforms do not eliminate the cognitive and biological constraints on human social relationships.
- Dunbar's number remains a relevant predictor of social network size even in the digital age.
- Finite user attention and time resources dictate the scale of online social interactions.
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