One well-known feature of
social networks is
that similar
people tend to attract each other: birds of a feather flock together.
So an interesting question is whether these similarities cause
people to behave in the same way online — whether it might lead to flocking or herding behavior, for example.
Today, we get an interesting insight into this phenomena thanks to the work of Rui Fan and colleagues at Beihang University in China. They have compared the way
that tweets labeled with specific
influence other
people on the network.
And their conclusion is surprising. They say the results clearly show
that anger is more influential than other
such as joy or sadness, a finding
that could have significant implications for our understanding of the way information spreads through
social networks. Read more...More about Twitter, Social Network, Emotions, Weibo, and Social Media