TY - JOUR
T1 - Small-world properties of facebook group networks
AU - Wohlgemuth, Jason
AU - Matache, Mihaela Teodora
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Complex Systems Publications, Inc.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Small-world networks permeate modern society. In this paper we present a methodology for creating and analyzing a practically limitless number of networks exhibiting small-world network properties. More precisely, we analyze networks whose nodes are Facebook groups sharing a common word in the group name and whose links are mutual members in any two groups. By analyzing several numerical characteristics of single networks and network aggregations, we investigate how the small-world properties scale with a coarsening of the network. We show that Facebook group networks have small average path lengths and large clustering coefficients that do not vanish with increased network size, thus exhibiting small-world features. The degree distributions cannot be characterized completely by a power law, and the clustering coefficients are significantly larger than what would be expected for random networks, while the average shortest paths have consistently small values characteristic of random graphs. At the same time, the average connectivity increases as a power of the network size, while the average clustering coefficients and average path lengths do not exhibit a clear scaling with the size of the network. Our results are somewhat similar to what has been found in previous studies of the networks of individual Facebook users.
AB - Small-world networks permeate modern society. In this paper we present a methodology for creating and analyzing a practically limitless number of networks exhibiting small-world network properties. More precisely, we analyze networks whose nodes are Facebook groups sharing a common word in the group name and whose links are mutual members in any two groups. By analyzing several numerical characteristics of single networks and network aggregations, we investigate how the small-world properties scale with a coarsening of the network. We show that Facebook group networks have small average path lengths and large clustering coefficients that do not vanish with increased network size, thus exhibiting small-world features. The degree distributions cannot be characterized completely by a power law, and the clustering coefficients are significantly larger than what would be expected for random networks, while the average shortest paths have consistently small values characteristic of random graphs. At the same time, the average connectivity increases as a power of the network size, while the average clustering coefficients and average path lengths do not exhibit a clear scaling with the size of the network. Our results are somewhat similar to what has been found in previous studies of the networks of individual Facebook users.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84921261862&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.25088/complexsystems.23.3.197
DO - 10.25088/complexsystems.23.3.197
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84921261862
SN - 0891-2513
VL - 23
SP - 197
EP - 225
JO - Complex Systems
JF - Complex Systems
IS - 3
ER -