The Majority Illusion in Social Networks

Statistical Physics and Complexity Group meeting

The Majority Illusion in Social Networks

  • Event time: 11:00am
  • Event date: 7th October 2015
  • Speaker: Jérôme Michaud (University of Edinburgh)
  • Location: Room 2511,

Event details

In this talk I will discuss the "Majority illusion" paradox in social networks. This paradox says that it is possible that a globally rare variant can be perceived locally as common by almost every agent in the network. I will explain why this is the case and show how to quantify the phenomenon. I will also link this paradox with the well-known "friend paradox". (No prior knowledge assumed)

Ref: Lerman, K., Yan, X., & Wu, X. Z. (2015). The Majority Illusion in Social Networks. arXiv preprint arXiv: 1506.03022.