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Cited by 339Social Media in Health EducationKnowledge Management and SharingHealth Literacy and Information Accessibility

The 1% rule in four digital health social networks: An observational study

Open access
van Mierlo, Trevor·2014·Journal of Medical Internet Research
DOI 10.2196/jmir.2966PMC PMC3939180
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Abstract

BACKGROUND: In recent years, cyberculture has informally reported a phenomenon named the 1% rule, or 90-9-1 principle, which seeks to explain participatory patterns and network effects within Internet communities. The rule states that 90% of actors observe and do not participate, 9% contribute sparingly, and 1% of actors create the vast majority of new content. This 90%, 9%, and 1% are also known as Lurkers, Contributors, and Superusers, respectively. To date, very little empirical research has been conducted to verify the 1% rule. OBJECTIVE: The 1% rule is widely accepted in digital marketing. Our goal was to determine if the 1% rule applies to moderated Digital Health Social Networks (DHSNs) designed to facilitate behavior change. METHODS: To help gain insight into participatory patterns, descriptive data were extracted from four long-standing DHSNs: the AlcoholHelpCenter, DepressionCenter, PanicCenter, and StopSmokingCenter sites. RESULTS: During the study period, 63,990 actors created 578,349 posts. Less than 25% of actors made one or more posts. The applicability of the 1% rule was confirmed as Lurkers, Contributors, and Superusers accounted for a weighted average of 1.3% (n=4668), 24.0% (n=88,732), and 74.7% (n=276,034) of content. CONCLUSIONS: The 1% rule was consistent across the four DHSNs. As social network sustainability requires fresh content and timely interactions, these results are important for organizations actively promoting and managing Internet communities. Superusers generate the vast majority of traffic and create value, so their recruitment and retention is imperative for long-term success. Although Lurkers may benefit from observing interactions between Superusers and Contributors, they generate limited or no network value. The results of this study indicate that DHSNs may be optimized to produce network effects, positive externalities, and bandwagon effects. Further research in the development and expansion of DHSNs is required.

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  • Relationships between participant motivation, use, engagement, and actor status have identified participation inequalities mirroring the 80-20 Pareto principle and participation patterns such as the 90-9-1 rule.

    “The relationships between participant motivation, use, engagement, and actor status have identified participation inequalities mirroring the 80–20 Pareto principle and participation patterns such as the 90–9–1 rule (18, 21, 22).”

    From Trouble with the curve: the 90-9-1 rule to measure volitional participation inequalities among Royal Canadian Mounted Police cadets during training (2024) · cites this paper as [18]

    The Introduction’s “The 1% Rule” section explicitly links the 90–9–1 participation pattern to the 80–20 Pareto principle, and the Results > Summary reports unequal posting across actor groups. The Introduction > Background mentions participant motivations, but the paper does not establish relationships among motivation, use, engagement, and actor status as the cause or basis of those inequalities. Page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The 90-9-1 rule classifies user participation into three categories: Lurkers, Contributors, and Superusers, where 90% of actors do not participate, 9% seldom contribute, and 1% contribute significantly to the content.

    “The 90–9–1 rule classifies user participation into three categories; specifically, Lurkers, Contributors, and Superusers, where 90% of actors do not participate, 9% seldom contribute, and 1% contribute significantly to the content (15, 17, 18, 22, 23).”

    From Trouble with the curve: the 90-9-1 rule to measure volitional participation inequalities among Royal Canadian Mounted Police cadets during training (2024) · cites this paper as [18]

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Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [24]Miller WR Rollnick S Motivational Interviewing, Second Edition: Preparing People for Change 2002 New York The Guilford Press

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Authors
van Mierlo, T.
Venue
Journal of Medical Internet Research
Publisher
JMIR Publications Inc.
Published
2014-02-04
Volume
16
Issue
2
Pages
e33
ISSN
1438-8871 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2196/jmir.2966
PMC
PMC3939180
OpenAlex
W2085177870
Cited by
339
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 20 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 36 · 2021: 33 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 26 · 2018: 38 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 28 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 13 · 2012: 1
FWCI
39.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Journal of Medical Internet Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
University of Toronto
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Health › Social Media in Health Education
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Knowledge Management and Sharing
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Literacy and Information Accessibility
Keywords
online communities, superusers, lurkers, contributors, network effects, panic disorder, smoking cessation, content creation
MeSH terms
Workforce, Humans, Social Support, Internet, Consumer Health Information

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