Lognormal distributions of user post lengths in internet discussions - a consequence of the weber-fechner law?

Abstract

The paper presents an analysis of the length of comments posted in Internetdiscussion fora, based on a collection of large datasets from several sources. We foundthat despite differences in the forum language, the discussed topics and useremotions, the comment length distributions are very regular and described by thelognormal form with a very high precision. We discuss possible origins of thisregularity and the existence of a universal mechanism deciding the length of the userposts. We suggest that the observed lognormal dependence may be due to anentropy maximizing combination of two psychological factors which are perceivedon a non-linear, logarithmic scale in accordance with the Weber-Fechner law, namelythe time spent on post related considerations and the comment length itself. Thishypothesis is supported by an experimental check of text length recognition capacity,confirming proportionality of the ‘just noticeable differences’ for text lengths - thebasis of the Weber-Fechner law