Topics In Social Computing (67810) Module 1 Introduction & The Structure of Social Networks

Administrative Matters “Tirgul”: Tue. 13:00-13:45. “Class”:Wed.10:00-11:45. Course website: (leads to CSE moodle website) If you did not register to the course: make sure you register to the website (it may close to unregistered students at some point).

Contacting me Please send course related s to (not directly to my personal ) Reception hours: Tuesdays Rothberg building, room A406. – Write an before showing up (hours may change) – Or to set up alternative times if needed.

Course Assignments 1 programming exercise (not heavy) to complement the material taught in class (10%) 2 Theoretical exercises (1 week each) that will be 0% of the grade Final Exam: 90% of the grade. – Will include a question from theoretical exercise (or a very minor variant)

Bonus exercises / questions: – May be given occasionally Can never hurt your grade.

Some of the course will include material from the book: “Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World” by David Easley and Jon Kleinberg. – A preprint version is available online at: (Link) (Link) The book should also be available through the math/CS library.

What is this course about? A partial overview of the field of social computing. – Interdisciplinary: Sociology, Computer Science, Physics, Economics, Biology… Goals of the field – To understand social structure and dynamics making use of newly available data from computer systems – To utilize social structure and dynamics in our systems – To support organization & “computation” involving people

The course will have three main parts: 1.Structure of social networks & why it matters 2.Social dynamics (e.g., cascades & epidemics) 3.Design of social systems & incentives incl. Market systems

Sociology’s perspective We are social creatures, constantly interacting Our environment & our social context influence us to a great degree (Surprisingly, we often miss many of these effects and influences)

Examples: Our social connections: friends, co-workers, spouse, employers – Conformity, obedience Language – Gender identity & language Social institutions & their sets of rules: The market, school, the university, marriage – Morality and institutions Class structure – Mobility Social Norms Computer systems allow us to obtain data on these structures, and also start to form some of our social surroundings

Some questions we will ask and topics we will explore (Some through mathematical models, some more generally by learning about related computer systems)

from: “An Information Flow Model for Conflict and Fission in Small Groups” W. W. Zachary, J. of Anthropological Research 33:4, 1977 Zachary’s Karate Club – Social Network

Conflict arose over price of lessons Eventually the club split to two clubs Structure -> Dynamics

Predicting and learning social structure – How are friendships structured?

“A History of Influenza”, C.W. Potter, J. of applied microbiology, 2001, 91,572—579. How do things spread in society? – Epidemics, Information

From viruses to viral content & internet memes

Advertising, distributing information and filtering

Etiquette and social context What do interfaces allow?

Wisdom of the crowds Are crowds wise? Can we use markets to extract information?

Or does the crowd make mistakes?

We will discuss the Bitcoin protocol, and money as a form of social construct that relies on consensus

Class / Home experiment Who has a Facebook account? Pick a random Facebook “friend”. Is a Facebook “friend” really a friend? Check how many Facebook friends she/he has

Questions for thought How strong is your connection? Do you have many friends in common? Who has more friends (you or your friend)? – What influences this? – What would you expect the result to be for the “average” / person? – Are men and women different? Did you pick a friend from the same gender or a different one? Did you pick a friend with the same hair color or a different one?