The simple rules of social contagion
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep04343
This scientific article explains how social contagion really happens. It discusses different social contagion models and explains the findings of a study researched by the authors. The article describes the concept of independent cascade models (ICM). ICM states that the more someone is exposed to a behavior, the more likely is that person to adopt that behavior. The article also describes the linear threshold model, which states that someone will adopt a behavior after a certain proportion of their friends also adopt that behavior. However, the article explains that these models are too simple and cannot work. Studies showed that increased exposure initially increase the probability of adopting a behavior, but that it eventually becomes inhibitory to the spread of that behavior. Models accounting for these findings called complex contagion are now created to give a more accurate description of social contagion.
The authors of the article conducted a study on two websites: Twitter and Digg. They collected data on information propagation and created a model for social contagion. They first found that, as expected, the ICM and the threshold model were not a good representation of social contagion. The researchers had to create a new variable called visibility for their model. Visibility refers to the likelihood of a user seeing a specific message. A post will be more likely to be seen if it generates a lot of interaction and has been posted recently. A message will first be pushed to the top of the feed and then will be pushed down with time. The authors found that visibility has a huge impact on the likelihood of a behavior to be spreading. Behaviors that are easier to access tend to spread more and faster. Using two different websites also showed to the authors the impact of design on the spread of information. Websites with higher visibility, where information is refreshed more, tend to create more information sharing and new behaviors developing.
The article relates to the content discussed in class through the different models of social contagion. We also discussed the cascade model in class and how a few people adopting a behavior first can decide how an entire group of people behaves. We also learned about the threshold model and how if the right people are the initial adopters, the behavior can spread to the entire network. The article discusses how the people with a lot of connections, who have access to a lot of information, tend to adopt new behaviors less. This finding relates to our class discussion on threshold model. We also found that the people with the most connections had to be the initial adopters in order for the behavior to spread to the entire network. Otherwise, these people tend not to switch their behavior.
This article is also very interesting because of its comparison with the propagation of epidemics. The article explained how social contagion is more complex than pathogenic contagion. Visibility and the number of exposure have intricate impacts on social contagion, whereas the number of exposure linearly increases pathogenic contagion. The article also explains how people with more contacts are more likely to be infected by pathogenic contagion because they are more likely to be exposed. On the other hand, people with more contacts are less likely to be infected by social contagion because they are more likely to miss information and need more social signals to adopt a new behavior.
The information and findings provided by this article are especially interesting because they apply to all of us. We all have witnessed new behaviors developing around us and on social media, and it is interesting to learn how these behaviors spread. A big trend that I witnessed was the evolution of content posted on social media. At first, text was the most common form of content. People did not have cameras on their phones and uploading images or videos was harder because of the broadband. People then started uploading pictures on Facebook and later Snapchat and Instagram. Apps like Vine and TikTok were later developed and people are now sharing videos. It is interesting to see how people are posting increasingly interactive content with added features such as image and sound. This trend can be explained by the concept of visibility explained in the article. It is easier to notice and remember videos than images and images than text. The increased visibility made these contents develop more and made them the main content of their time. The increase of broadband and the development of cellular networks also made these new trends possible.