Modeling Users' Activity on Twitter Networks: Validation of Dunbar's Number
Open accessAbstract
Microblogging and mobile devices appear to augment human social capabilities, which raises the question whether they remove cognitive or biological constraints on human communication. In this paper we analyze a dataset of Twitter conversations collected across six months involving 1.7 million individuals and test the theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships known as Dunbar's number. We find that the data are in agreement with Dunbar's result; users can entertain a maximum of 100-200 stable relationships. Thus, the 'economy of attention' is limited in the online world by cognitive and biological constraints as predicted by Dunbar's theory. We propose a simple model for users' behavior that includes finite priority queuing and time resources that reproduces the observed social behavior.
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According to Dunbar, the circle of friends on social media is not qualitatively homogeneous as it tends to include a vast array of simple acquaintances that people do not foster in a stable way.
“the circle of friends on the social media is not qualitatively homogeneous as it tends to include a vast array of simple acquaintances that people do not foster in a stable (and therefore cognitively demanding) way”
From Internet use and access, behavior, cyberbullying, and grooming: Results of an investigative whole city survey of adolescents (2017) · cites this paper as [42]
Although in the 1990s an overall pessimistic conception supported by numerous studies prevailed, the current picture appears to be more optimistic.
“Although in the 1990s an overall “pessimistic” conception supported by numerous studies [44] prevailed, the current picture appears to be more optimistic [21,2,8,42,9]”
From Internet use and access, behavior, cyberbullying, and grooming: Results of an investigative whole city survey of adolescents (2017) · cites this paper as [42]
Social comparison might lead to lower self-esteem, and the size of one's real social network to be successfully handled seems limited by Dunbar's number, likely also valid on social media channels such as Twitter.
“Without doubt, the social comparison process is not unproblematic, because it might lead to lower self-esteem [79] and the size of one’s own real social network to be successfully handled seems to be limited by the so called Dunbar’s number (a theoretical limit to the number of people with whom any individual is able to sustain a stable or meaningful social relationship, usually considered to be”
From Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories (2019) · cites this paper as [81]
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- Authors
- Gonçalves, B., Perra, N., & Vespignani, A.
- Affiliations
- Indiana University Bloomington (US)
- Institute for Scientific Interchange (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Perra, Nicola
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2011-08-03
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e22656
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3149601
- OpenAlex
- W1928223220
- Cited by
- 638
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 63 · 2018: 82 · 2017: 47 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 50 · 2013: 56 · 2012: 35
- FWCI
- 35.65
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Greenwich Academic Literature Archive (University of Greenwich) (acceptedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- Army Research Laboratory (W911NF)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Digital Media and Philosophy
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Media and Digital Communication
- Keywords
- Dunbar's number, Twitter, social networks, microblogging, attention economy, user activity modeling, time resources, online social behavior
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Social Behavior, Blogging
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