A Social Network Illusion: The Majority Paradox
This article highlights an illusion commonly found within Social-Networks called the “majority illusion”. More often than not, something is considered common when it is actually rare due to this illusion created by social networks. The illusion provides insight on understanding the chances of material spreading through a social network rapidly or not registering at all. The article states that the content of some material cannot cause this difference, however the popularity of the nodes does. Discovered by Kristina Lerman, the majority paradox “is the phenomenon in which an individual can observe a behavior or attribute in most of his or her friends, even though it is rare in the network as a whole”. Lerman created the graph in the figure above to prove her theory. On the left-hand side, more than half of the single step neighbors for the uncolored nodes are colored. On the right-hand side (still the same network setup), none of the uncolored nodes have more than half their single step connections as colored nodes. This phenomenon generates the “local impression that a specific attribute is common when the global truth is entirely different”.
The majority illusion shows the importance of ties between edges and their strengths within social networks. Information can be skewed very easily by the popularity of a few nodes. Why is this illusion relevant and important? Well, as the article states, the majority illusion “may seem harmless when it comes to memes on Reddit and videos on Youtube, but it can have insidious effects”. It is one explanation for extremist ideas spreading so easily. More specifically, “studies have shown that teenagers consistently overestimate the amount of alcohol and drugs their friends consume”. To conclude, the majority illusion starts with a few strongly connected nodes fooling the network into thinking their information is common.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/538866/the-social-network-illusion-that-tricks-your-mind/