Strong and Weak Ties in Phone Data
In-depth records of human communication patterns are presently available in electronic databases, such as call and email logs, providing new ways to map and examine the organization of social and communication networks. We are able to concurrently study the local and the global structure of a society-wide communication network by looking at the communication behaviors of millions of mobile phone users. Contrary to popular belief, social networks are resilient to the removal of strong ties but break down after a phase transition if the weak ties are removed. This is because we see a linkage between interaction strengths and the network’s local structure. We demonstrate that the dynamic trapping of information in communities is caused by this coupling’s considerable slowing of the diffusion process.
Many networks are known to be resilient to random node removal, but they are susceptible to the loss of a cluster of nodes. One would also anticipate that, in terms of the links, the strong relationships play a more significant role in preserving the network’s integrity than the weak ones. However, the research demonstrates the converse impact in communication networks: While the loss of strong linkages has no effect on the network’s overall integrity, the removal of weak ties causes a network collapse akin to a phase transition. It was also discovered that the observed coupling between the network structure and tie strengths significantly slows information flow and traps it in communities, which explains why successful searches in social networks are conducted primarily through intermediate- to weak-strength ties while avoiding the a cluster of nodes. Therefore, in order to increase the dissemination of information, one must either actively seek out information or purposefully push it through weak links.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0610245104