How social networks can create the illusion that something rare is common

[kcorbitt]

> This comes about because the distribution of friends on social networks follows a power law. So while most people will have a small number of friends, a few individuals have huge numbers of friends. And these people skew the average.

> Here’s an analogy. If you measure the height of all your male friends. you’ll find that the average is about 170 centimeters. If you are male, on average, your friends will be about the same height as you are. Indeed, the mathematical notion of “average” is a good way to capture the nature of this data.

> But imagine that one of your friends was much taller than you—say, one kilometer or 10 kilometers tall. This person would dramatically skew the average, which would make your friends taller than you, on average. In this case, the “average” is a poor way to capture this data set.

Based on the wikipedia article of the friendship paradox[1], the power law distribution really has nothing to do with it, and the paradox would exist even if the distribution of number of friends were completely uniform. It's instead related to the fact that people with a high number of friends are overrepresented in the lists of other peoples' friends. The rest of the author's analysis describing the new "paradox" passes the smell test, however.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_paradox

[erikb]

Because of that mistake I had a hard time of understanding the actual topic. What is it that they are trying to say?

[atemerev]

Any SMM manager worth her salt knows it, as it is one of the principles of the profession.

Rule number 2: persuading major influencers is hard. You should target their connections instead who are not that popular (close friends, family members etc.) Once you persuade them, they can influence your primary targets, who will spread the message to their numerous following.

Rule #3 (advanced): always draw a map of key connections (as counted in the number of interactions) in the network you are working in. This will help immensely in designing your influence strategy.

Here. With some practice, you can now beat the SMM game.

[mhb]

What is SMM?

[k__]

It also works in another way.

I for example, have a rather alternative love life, but it doesn't seem alternative to me most of the time. Because social networks are prefiltered and I feel like I'm surrounded by people like me.

So I get the feelong to do 'normal' things, only when I meet people outside my filterbubble I'm reminded That the majority is different.

It is much easier to do what you want, if you think it's nothing exceptional.

[rmc]

Another way to state that average paradox: The majority of people have an above average number of legs.

[Kenji]

I don't really understand how that's a paradox. It's a natural result of the mathematical properties of the average, if outliers are a problem, we use median.

[digitalengineer]

Won't the 'Echo Room' Facebook algorithm just enhance the "Majority illusion"?

(*the new one that shows all the things people like you post and will filter out other viewpoints)

[sdoering]

I believe exactly this to happen. Combine this with Confirmation bias[1] and Recency effect[2] and you have the typical echo chamber effect (be it Google showing fitting results, be it FB with the algorithm or be it the partisane media. So your views will get bolstered. You will think you are talking within a big group of likeminded people, because differing strains of thoughts never reach you.

And if you combine this with a debate like in Germany, where FB is being asked to proactively delete/censor* more stuff, this might become a bigger problem.

* Not that I like the stuff to be censored particularly - definitively on the contrary. Just pointing out the effect.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_position_effect#Recency...

[arien]

This also makes it so that, due to your PoV being validated for (what you think are) bigger numbers, you take on contrary PoVs (less represented in your network) with more confidence, thinking they are wrong and reinforcing your own view. Vicious circle.

[galtwho]

An earlier discussion citing the same paper https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9826200

[kokey]

Combining this with virtue signalling, it might be why many people are so surprised at certain election outcomes.

[boothead]

This must be related to how Pluralistic Ignorance [1] arises?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance

[aleh]

I guess that explains why celebrities make millions for only being celebrities.

[DanielBMarkham]

This is also why celebrities are very careful about what appearances they make or products they endorse -- and are downright paranoid when it comes to preparing for and executing interviews with opinion influencers.

It also means that negative opinions are to be dealt with very carefully. Ever wonder why with 10K celebrities on the planet, most all of them think most all of the rest of them are awesome? It's because with one bad word, if you hit the wrong influencer, you could start a public opinion avalanche. (I omit those celebrities using the "burn it all down!" PR strategy)

[byron_fast]

So it functions just like news media then, where rare things are nearly all we hear about.

[cableshaft]

That was my thought when I saw this headline. News is all about what's new, novel, different from normal, otherwise it wouldn't be interesting and worth talking about.

[MisterMashable]

It's opposite is probably also true, how very common things are made to look rare and exceptional e.g. blood moons.

[twitchard]

Is this anything more than the insight that your perception of 'average' is calculated from the distribution of what you observe, not from the true distribution? Or am I missing something

[svram]

It's all a pipe dream unless you are able to identify and persuade relevant influencers.

[EGreg]

I believe this was already known. This may be a different mathematical analysis of it, though.