Structure and tie strengths in mobile communication networks
Edited by H. Eugene Stanley, Boston University, Boston, MA, and approved January 27, 2007
Abstract
Electronic databases, from phone to e-mails logs, currently provide detailed records of human communication patterns, offering novel avenues to map and explore the structure of social and communication networks. Here we examine the communication patterns of millions of mobile phone users, allowing us to simultaneously study the local and the global structure of a society-wide communication network. We observe a coupling between interaction strengths and the network's local structure, with the counterintuitive consequence that social networks are robust to the removal of the strong ties but fall apart after a phase transition if the weak ties are removed. We show that this coupling significantly slows the diffusion process, resulting in dynamic trapping of information in communities and find that, when it comes to information diffusion, weak and strong ties are both simultaneously ineffective.
Acknowledgments
We thank Tamás Vicsek for useful discussions. J.-P.O. thanks the Graduate School in Computational Methods of Information Technology (ComMIT), the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and the Väisälä Foundation for a travel grant to visit A.-L.B. at Harvard University. This research was partially supported by the Academy of Finland, Centres of Excellence Programmes, Project nos. 44897 and 213470 and Grant OTKA K60456. G.S. and A.-L.B. were supported by National Science Foundation Grants ITR DMR-0426737, CNS-0540348, and IIS-0513650 and by the James S. McDonald Foundation.
Supporting Information
Adobe PDF - 06-10245appendix.pdf
Adobe PDF - 06-10245appendix.pdf
- Download
- 1.64 MB
References
1
H Ebel, L-I Mielsch, S Bornholdt Phys Rev E Stat Phys Plasmas Fluids Relat Interdiscip Top 66, 35103 (2002).
2
J-P Eckmann, E Moses, D Sergi Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101, 14333–14337 (2004).
3
PS Dodds, R Muhamad, DJ Watts Science 301, 827–829 (2003).
4
W Aiello, F Chung, L Lu (Assoc Comput Machinery, New York), pp. 171–180 (2000).
5
S Wasserman, K Faust Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, 1994).
6
C Haythornthwaite Inf Commun Soc 8, 125–147 (2005).
7
MEJ Newman, DJ Watts, A-L Barabási The Structure and Dynamics of Networks (Princeton Univ Press, Princeton, 2006).
8
SN Dorogovtsev, JFF Mendes Evolution of Networks (Oxford Univ Press, New York, 2003).
9
R Pastor-Satorras, A Vespignani Phys Rev Lett 86, 3200–3203 (2001).
10
R Cohen, K Erez, D ben Avraham, S Havlin Phys Rev Lett 85, 4626–4628 (2000).
11
V Colizza, A Barrat, M Barthélemy, A Vespignani Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103, 2015–2020 (2006).
12
E Almaas, B Kovács, T Vicsek, ZN Oltvai, A-L Barabási Nature 427, 839–843 (2004).
13
K-I Goh, B Kahng, D Kim Phys Rev Lett 87, 278701 (2001).
14
A Maritan, F Colaiori, A Flammini, M Cieplak, JR Banavar Science 272, 984–986 (1996).
15
LC Freeman Sociometry 40, 35–41 (1977).
16
M Girvan, MEJ Newman Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 99, 7821–7826 (2002).
17
M Granovetter Am J Sociol 78, 1360–1380 (1973).
18
M Granovetter Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers (Univ Chicago Press, 2nd Ed, Chicago, 1995).
19
P Csermely Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks (Springer, 1st Ed, Berlin, 2006).
20
P Jaccard Bull Soc Vaudoise Sci Nat 37, 547–579 (1901).
21
D Stauffer, A Aharony Introduction to Percolation Theory (CRC, 2nd Ed, London, 1994).
22
A Bunde, S Havlin Fractals and Disordered Systems (Springer, 2nd Ed, New York), pp. 51 (1996).
23
M Barthélemy, A Barrat, R Pastor-Satorras, A Vespignani Phys Rev Lett 92, 178701 (2004).
24
Z Toroczkai, KE Bassler Nature 428, 716 (2004).
25
LK Gallos, R Cohen, P Argyrakis, A Bunde, S Havlin Phys Rev Lett 94, 188701 (2005).
26
EM Rogers Diffusion of Innovations (Free Press, 5th Ed, New York, 2003).
27
EG See, HW Hethcote SIAM Review 42, 599–693 (2000).
28
R Albert, H Jeong, A-L Barabási Nature 406, 378–382 (2000).
29
J-P Onnela, K Kaski, J Kertész Eur Phys J B 38, 353–362 (2004).
30
DS Callaway, MEJ Newman, SH Strogatz, DJ Watts Phys Rev Lett 85, 5468–5471 (2000).
31
G Palla, I Derényi, I Farkas, T Vicsek Nature 435, 814–818 (2005).
32
A-L Barabás, R Albert Science 286, 509–512 (1995).
33
G Caldarelli Scale-Free Networks (Oxford Univ Press, London, 2007).
Information & Authors
Information
Published in
Classifications
Copyright
© 2007 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA.
Submission history
Received: November 18, 2006
Published online: May 1, 2007
Published in issue: May 1, 2007
Keywords
Acknowledgments
We thank Tamás Vicsek for useful discussions. J.-P.O. thanks the Graduate School in Computational Methods of Information Technology (ComMIT), the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and the Väisälä Foundation for a travel grant to visit A.-L.B. at Harvard University. This research was partially supported by the Academy of Finland, Centres of Excellence Programmes, Project nos. 44897 and 213470 and Grant OTKA K60456. G.S. and A.-L.B. were supported by National Science Foundation Grants ITR DMR-0426737, CNS-0540348, and IIS-0513650 and by the James S. McDonald Foundation.
Notes
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/0610245104/DC1.
Authors
Competing Interests
Conflict of interest statement: A.L.B. served as a paid consultant for the phone company that provided the phone data.
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citation statements
Altmetrics
Citations
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.
Cited by
Loading...
View Options
View options
PDF format
Download this article as a PDF file
DOWNLOAD PDFLogin options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Personal login Institutional LoginRecommend to a librarian
Recommend PNAS to a LibrarianPurchase options
Purchase this article to access the full text.