Understanding Social Networks to Make Better Decisions
The article “Using data from social networks to understand and improve systems” talks about how the social network can influence how well a group functions. By analyzing the interactions and the dynamics of social networks MIT’s Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) aimed to improve decision-making and make better predictions. The article talked about several of IDSS’s research on social networks.
In professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s research, professor Pentland and his colleagues are able to identify certain communication patterns in high-performing groups by tracking interaction patterns such as which people are communicating and how much people are speaking using electronic badges and software for mobile phones. The research findings are now applied to improve education. In professor Devavrat Shah’s research, he developed statistical inference algorithms that are able to analyze social data and yield useful and accurate information, such as predicting Twitter trends with 95 percent accuracy. Lastly, Professor Esther Duflo examines the effect of social policies and programs to determine if they are beneficial and effective by mapping the diffusion of information through individuals that are participants or non-participants in the program.
These researches are relevant to our class because we have discussed a lot about social networks in class. By using nodes to represent individuals and edges to represent interactions, we are able to represent a social network. We also learned about the power that comes with the social position an individual occupies, and also how the group power dynamic and information flow can be changed by the group structure. Specific to Professor Pentland’s research, we learned about the concept of social capital, where some groups function better due to the structure of their social network. These researches provide a real, professional case of how these structures we learned can be analyzed and used to improve performance in our society.