Human behaviour is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to... more Human behaviour is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to identify social influence effects in observational studies 9-13 , and it is unknown whether online social networks operate in the same way . Here we report results from a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US congressional elections. The results show that the messages directly influenced political self-expression, information seeking and realworld voting behaviour of millions of people. Furthermore, the messages not only influenced the users who received them but also the users' friends, and friends of friends. The effect of social transmission on real-world voting was greater than the direct effect of the messages themselves, and nearly all the transmission occurred between 'close friends' who were more likely to have a face-to-face relationship. These results suggest that strong ties are instrumental for spreading both online and real-world behaviour in human social networks.
Some social connections are stronger than others. People have not only friends, but also best fri... more Some social connections are stronger than others. People have not only friends, but also best friends. Social scientists have long recognized this characteristic of social connections and researchers frequently use the term tie strength to refer to this concept. We used online interaction data (specifically, Facebook interactions) to successfully identify real-world strong ties. Ground truth was established by asking users themselves to name their closest friends in real life. We found the frequency of online interaction was diagnostic of strong ties, and interaction frequency was much more useful diagnostically than were attributes of the user or the user's friends. More private communications (messages) were not necessarily more informative than public communications (comments, wall posts, and other interactions).
Abstract: Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while ... more Abstract: Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources in order to conduct their research. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects evermore important.
Abstract Social networks are essential to the modern labor market because the majority of jobs ar... more Abstract Social networks are essential to the modern labor market because the majority of jobs are found through a social contact. Helping a friend is a costly favor, so a stronger tie may intuitively be more likely to help. Yet, in this literature, the widely known “strength of weak ties” claim found most individuals obtain their jobs with the help of a weak rather than strong tie (Granovetter, 1973).
From Past to Present? The Effect of Presentation Direction on History Learning Maxwell Moholy & J... more From Past to Present? The Effect of Presentation Direction on History Learning Maxwell Moholy & Jason Jones University of California, San Diego 7 The present study investigated the widely held belief that history should be taught in a forward direction: less recent events taught before more recent events. Despite the prevalence of this belief, the effect of order of presentation on learning in the context of history has not been examined empirically.
Human behaviour is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to... more Human behaviour is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to identify social influence effects in observational studies 9-13 , and it is unknown whether online social networks operate in the same way . Here we report results from a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US congressional elections. The results show that the messages directly influenced political self-expression, information seeking and realworld voting behaviour of millions of people. Furthermore, the messages not only influenced the users who received them but also the users' friends, and friends of friends. The effect of social transmission on real-world voting was greater than the direct effect of the messages themselves, and nearly all the transmission occurred between 'close friends' who were more likely to have a face-to-face relationship. These results suggest that strong ties are instrumental for spreading both online and real-world behaviour in human social networks.
Some social connections are stronger than others. People have not only friends, but also best fri... more Some social connections are stronger than others. People have not only friends, but also best friends. Social scientists have long recognized this characteristic of social connections and researchers frequently use the term tie strength to refer to this concept. We used online interaction data (specifically, Facebook interactions) to successfully identify real-world strong ties. Ground truth was established by asking users themselves to name their closest friends in real life. We found the frequency of online interaction was diagnostic of strong ties, and interaction frequency was much more useful diagnostically than were attributes of the user or the user's friends. More private communications (messages) were not necessarily more informative than public communications (comments, wall posts, and other interactions).
Abstract: Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while ... more Abstract: Researchers often face the problem of needing to protect the privacy of subjects while also needing to integrate data that contains personal information from diverse data sources in order to conduct their research. The advent of computational social science and the enormous amount of data about people that is being collected makes protecting the privacy of research subjects evermore important.
Abstract Social networks are essential to the modern labor market because the majority of jobs ar... more Abstract Social networks are essential to the modern labor market because the majority of jobs are found through a social contact. Helping a friend is a costly favor, so a stronger tie may intuitively be more likely to help. Yet, in this literature, the widely known “strength of weak ties” claim found most individuals obtain their jobs with the help of a weak rather than strong tie (Granovetter, 1973).
From Past to Present? The Effect of Presentation Direction on History Learning Maxwell Moholy & J... more From Past to Present? The Effect of Presentation Direction on History Learning Maxwell Moholy & Jason Jones University of California, San Diego 7 The present study investigated the widely held belief that history should be taught in a forward direction: less recent events taught before more recent events. Despite the prevalence of this belief, the effect of order of presentation on learning in the context of history has not been examined empirically.
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