The impact of network structure on breaking ties in online social networks: unfollowing on twitter

We investigate the breaking of ties between individuals in the online social network of Twitter, a hugely popular social media service. Building on sociology concepts such as strength of ties, embeddedness, and status, we explore how network structure alone influences tie breaks – the common phenomena of an individual ceasing to “follow” another in Twitter’s directed social network. We examine these relationships using a dataset of 245,586 Twitter “follow” edges, and the persistence of these edges after nine months. We show that structural properties of individuals and dyads at Time 1 have a significant effect on the existence of edges at Time 2, and connect these findings to the social theories that motivated the study. Author Keywords Social networks, tie breaks, social media, Twitter. ACM Classification Keywords H.5.0 [Information interfaces and presentation]: General General Terms Human Factors

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Funda Kivran-Swaine, Priya Govindan, Mor Naaman
• Keywords: CHI 2011, Dyads, Embeddedness, Human Computer Interaction, Information Interfaces