The Power Law of Social Media: What CIOs Should Know

DQLive 2013, Mumbai, India, Dec 11 2013

The Power Law of Social MediaWhat CIOs should know

Srinath SrinivasaIIIT [email protected]


Recent new additions to our vocabulary

TelemedicineSMS/MMSElearning / MOOCNet Banking EticketingCreative CommonsTweetingSocial media

PhishingHackingCyberstalkingVirus / Spyware / Adware / MalwareCyber squattingIdentity theftPiracySpam


The “Information Age”The core driving force behind the new vocabulary

Comprehensive change brought by information and communication technologies (ICT)

Qualitative changes affecting the underlying mental model or the “paradigm”

Changes affecting the way we live (not just businesses)

Separation of information transactions from material transactions


The “Information Age”

Material exchange network

Information exchange network

Internet, mobile, databases, etc


Material versus Information

Material ExchangeConstrained by the laws of physics

Conserved transactions

High cost of replication and transportation

Material affects what we have and how we live

Information ExchangeIntangible (little or no physical constraints)Nonconserved transactionsExtremely low replication costs transportation costs with today´s ICT, leading do formation of frictionless systemsHard to “snatch away” internalized information

Information affects who we are!


Is this separation natural?

Image source: Wikipedia,HSTA

Note the separation between material and information logistics. Nature is already in the information age since several millenia!


Networks compared..

Material networks– Exchange of resources (and

in turn, energy)– Waste disposal

Information networks– Control– Semantics


What “flows” in an information network?

Information?Well yes..

But that is not the whole story..



Elements that “flow” on a social information network include elements of human cognition, like:

● Attention● Emotional state● Trust● Novelty● Acquaintance● etc.


Memory Processes

Declarative memory

Semantic

Episodic

Procedural memory

Reflexes

Motor control

Active mental model

Emotional state(System 1)

Long-termmemory

Working memory


Memory Processes

Skills, reflexesfrom Procedural memory

Theoretical knowledgefrom Semantic memory

Beliefs about intentionsand risktakingInfluenced by our active Mental modelin turn influenced by ouremotional state

Conscious thinkingManaged byWorking memory



Skills, reflexesfrom Procedural memory

Theoretical knowledgefrom Semantic memory

Beliefs about intentionsand risktakingInfluenced by our active Mental modelin turn influenced by ouremotional state

Conscious thinkingManaged byWorking memory


The Economics of “Attention” [Goldhaber 1997]

The commodity of scarcity in an informationrich world: Attention

Takes on different forms in media studies: Eyeballs, Immersiveness, PageRank, etc.

Attention: The process of concentrating on one piece of information from the environment while ignoring all others


Why does attention matter?

Image Source: Wikipedia


Why does attention matter?Did you ever imagine you'd be thinking about Himalayas / Tibet / Buddhism when you decided to attend this talk?

Attention controls what gets loaded into conscious (working) memory

Attention is a conserved entity unlike information, and hence is scarce

Extended attention form associations, whether or not they represent real associations found in nature


Attention

Properties of Attention (cf. [BH 04])

Exclusivity: increased attention on an input channel attenuates attention on other channels

Autobiographical: Reference to the subject on an attenuated channel, increases attention content onto that channel

Early selection versus late selection debates and the cocktail party problem

Transitivity: Attention by a subject to a speaker can result in the speaker transferring subject's attention onto a third topic or speaker


Modalities of Attention Transfer Online

HyperlinksUser clicking on a hyperlink transfers attention from host page to target pagePageRank of a page is a measure of overall attention received by the page by random surfers on the net

Twitter followers / subscriptionsList of followers of a person indicates people who wish to pay attention to a person's tweets


Acquaintance

Social association between people, acknowledging the existence and attributes of the other

The first stage of several forms of social phenomena like influence, trust, cooperation, etc.

Increasing levels of acquaintance imply increasing levels of knowledge about the other party

Acquaintance directly affects the availability heuristic in building mental models

Acquaintance networks form the basis for several social phenomena like hiring, dating, doing business with, etc.


Acquaintance

Triadic closureA characteristic feature of social acquaintance networks is the property of Triadic Closure

Informally: Two people who have a common friend are likely to become friends themselves. The more closer they are to their common friend, the more likely is it that they become friends themselves

A

C

B


Acquaintance and EntrenchmentTriadic closure property creates an effect of “entrenchment” in acquaintance networks (Image Source: [EK 10])

Entrenched networks:

low in novelty, dissonance in beliefs

high in mutual familiarity, trust


The Strength of Weak Ties

Bridges are links connecting two entrenched components of a network.

In social networks, bridges are necessarily “weak links” as strong ties would have resulted in triadic closure around the bridge. Bridges are the primary source of novelty in an entrenched network.

A famous paper [Granovetter '73] shows the importance of weak ties in social networks. People make major decisions of their lives (career, marriage,...) based on connections obtained from weak ties, rather than strong ties.

Image Source: [EK 10]


Mental Model

A collection of consistent, declarative representations that forms the axiomatic basis of reasoning (the “box” in which we think)

Active mental model

Reasoning and deduction carried out within the framework of the currently active mental model

Mental model used for reasoning, influenced by our emotional state and the intuition subsystem (System 1)

Dissonance with active mental model usually elicits an emotional reaction (laughter, terror, etc.)


Emotional State

A physiological configuration (joy, fear, panic, euphoria,...) based on mental state

Affected by dissonance in mental models

Affects the choice of active mental model

Has the property of emotional contagion – strong emotional states are mirrored by others in the vicinity

Emotional states can “flow” through an information network like the Internet!


Conformance

Asch Conformance Experiments


Diffusion of Ideas

Information diffusion is faster in sparsely connected parts of a network, rather than densely connected (entrenched) parts due to conformance effects.

Node d in the above figure does not switch to the new idea because of conformance pressures from nodes e, f and g

Image Source: [Sri 06]


Mental Models, Weak Ties and the Emotional Contagion


Spread of Ideas and the

Emotional Contagion

Spread of ideas hampered by entrenchment effects and conformance pressures

Spread of emotions facilitated in entrenched and tightlyknit networks

Information age interactions typically span mental models

Interaction across mentalmodels increases dissonance and emotionally charged conversations

Emotions spread faster on the Internet than ideas!


Crowds, Herds and MobsCrowds● A sharedattention group debating about a topic● Rich in diversity of viewpoints and argumentation● Wisdom of the Crowd

Herds● A shared mentalmodel group, all possessing the same or similar beliefs● Potent in strength of conviction of beliefs● Unwise as a collective and potentially manipulable ● Herd Mentality

Mobs● A shared emotionalstate group, all possessing the same emotional state, but no

shared mental model or attention● Extremely unpredictable, unwise and potent as a collective● Mob fury


Takeaways for CIOs

Social Media a great tool for fighting entrenchment effects and infusing novelty

Increase in novelty comes at a cost – dissonance in mental models leading to turmoil, distrust and defensiveness

Creating awareness about critical thinking, dispassionate argumentation and emotional contagions, very important to create wise crowds, rather than herds or mobs

Wise crowds selfregulate and offer rich outcomes, while unwise herds or mobs not only pose hurdles, but also resist being regulated

So.. get it right the first time..!


Takeaways for CIOs

Ingredients of a great online social experience:● Shared attention● Diversity in mental models● No dominant emotional state● Dispassionate and objective argumentation


Thank You!


References

[BH 04] Claus Bundesen, Thomas Habekost. Attention. In Lamberts, K. Goldstone, R. (Eds.) Handbook of Cognition, SAGE Publications, 2004.

[GoldHaber 97] Michael H. Goldhaber. The Attention Economy and the Net. First Monday, Volume 2, Number 4 7 April 1997.

[Granovetter 73] Mark S Granovetter. The strength of weak ties. American journal of sociology (1973): 13601380.

[EK 10] David Easley, Jon Kleinberg. Networks, Crowds and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

[Sri 06] Srinath Srinivasa. The PowerLaw of Information: Life in a Connected World. Response Books, Sage Publishers, 2006.

The Power Law of Social Media: What CIOs Should Know

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