Uncovering User Interaction Dynamics in Online Social Networks
Zhi Yang
Jilong Xue
Christo Wilson
Ben Y. Zhao
Yafei Dai
Proceedings of The 9th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM 2015)
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Paper Abstract
Measurement studies of online social networks (OSNs) show
that all social links are not equal, and the strength of each
link is best characterized by the frequency of interactions between
the linked users. To date, few studies have been able
to examine detailed interaction data over time. In this paper,
we first analyze the interaction dynamics in a large online social
network. We find that users invite new friends to interact
at a nearly constant rate, prefer to continue interacting with
friends with whom they have a larger number of historical interactions,
and most social links drop in interaction frequency
over time. Then, we use our insights from the analysis to derive
a generative model of social interactions that can capture
fundamental processes underling user interactions.