“Loosing” Facebook Friends

@danielequercia

<who am i>

daniele quercia

offline & online

social media language personality

social media

Emotions Talk of the City

Emotions Talk of the City

“Happy” (“sad”) users do cluster together

The Social World of Twitter [ICWSM’12]

YOU

YOUR FRIENDS

Emotions Talk of the City

social media environment sports health Royal wedding

Spanish/Portuguesecelebrity gossips

Talk of the City [ICWSM’12]

TweetLDA: Fast & Effective Topic Modeling

Goal: Predictors of Unfriending

Word of the Year 2010

Surveys

“the act of unfriending acknowledges that the definition of friend is different from the traditional”

Qualitative & Quantitative Studies

“the act of unfriending acknowledges that the definition of friend is different from the traditional”

Quantitative study of 4 predictors Personality Gender in social circles Age difference Common friends

Quantitative study of 4 predictors

Quantitative study of 4 predictors

> 34K Users 60% women median age 23 median #friends 123

Personality

WEIRD trap!Few hundreds of WEIRDos(White,Educated,Industrialized,Rich, and Democratic)

5.5M, reliable, n

o WEIRDos

David Stillwell & Michal Kosinski

Based on the two’s friend lists: We know which ties are broken NOT who “broke up” with whom

A Bmin(traitA, traitB)max(traitA, traitB)avg(traitA, traitB)

For each of the five traits:

For min, max, and avg, results are consistent: Only Extraversion (-) & Neuroticism (+) (t-test, p<0.001)

Gender in triads

ANY

M

Fraction of broken ties

ANY

ANY

F

ANY

ANY

M

Fraction of broken ties

ANY

ANY

F

ANY

54%

34%

Age difference

Not linear but… R2= 44%

Common friends

R2= 72%

A tie is likely to disappear between two who:

Are neurotic or introvert Have no common female friends Have large age difference Are not embedded in the same social circles

A tie is likely to disappear between two who:

Are neurotic or introvert Have no common female friends Have large age difference Are not embedded in the same social circles

A tie is likely to disappear between two who:

Are neurotic or introvert Have no common female friends Have large age difference Are not embedded in the same social circles

practical implications

news ranking

real networks have been virtualized

@danielequercia