Modeling evolutionary dynamics of lurking in social networks

Abstract

Lurking is a complex user-behavioral phenomenon that occurs in all largescale online communities and social networks. It generally refers to the behavior characterizing users that benefit from the information produced by others in the community without actively contributing back to the production of social content. The amount and evolution of lurkers may strongly affect an online social environment, therefore understanding the lurking dynamics and identifying strategies to curb this trend are relevant problems. In this regard, we introduce the Lurking Game, i.e., a model for analyzing the transitions from a lurking to a non-lurking (i.e., active) user role, and vice versa, in terms of evolutionary game theory. We evaluate the proposed Lurking Game by arranging agents on complex networks and analyzing the system evolution, seeking relations between the network topology and the final equilibrium of the game. Results suggest that the Lurking Game is suitable to model the lurking dynamics, showing how the adoption of rewarding mechanisms combined with the modeling of hypothetical heterogeneity of users’ interestsmay lead users in an online community towards a cooperative behavior.