1 . One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all
Before you go deep into the puzzle, consider this: If you measure the height of your male friends, for example, the average is about 170 cm. You are 172 and your friends are all about the same height as you are. Indeed, the mathematical concept of “average” is a good way to capture the nature of this data set.
But imagine that one of your friends was much taller than you. This person would dramatically skew the average, which would make your friends taller than you, on average. In this case, the “average” is a poor way to capture this data set.
Exactly this situation occurs on social networks. On average, your coauthors will be cited more often than you, and the people you follow will post more frequently than you and so on.
Now Lerman from University of Southern Caledonia has discovered a related paradox, which they call the majority illusion (多数错觉). They illustrate this illusion with an example. They take 14 nodes linked up to form a small network. They then color three of these nodes and count how many of the remaining nodes link to them in a single step.
In situation (a), the uncolored nodes see more than half of their neighbors as colored. This is the majority illusion—the local impression that a specific feature is common when the global truth is entirely different. While in situation (b) the majority illusion doesn’t occur.
So how popular is it in the real world? It’s found out that the majority illusion occurs in almost all network scenarios. “The effect is largest in the political blogs network, where 60% of nodes will have majority active neigbbours, even when only 20% of the nodes are truly active,” says Lerman.
It immediately explains many interesting phenomena. For a start, it shows how some content can spread globally while other similar content does not—the key is to start with a small number of well-connected early adopters fooling the rest of the network into thinking it is common. The affected nodes then find it natural to follow the trend. A real spread finally comes into being.
But it is not yet a marketer’s charter. For that, marketers must first identify the popular nodes that can create the majority illusion for the merger audience. These influencers must then be persuaded to adopt the desired behavior or product, which is essential to the prospect of the marketing plan.
1. The phrase “skew the average” in the 3rd paragraph most probably refers to the action of __________.| A．hiding the real average to be unrecognizable to others |
| B．producing an average against the general feature of data |
| C．working out the common feature suggested by the average |
| D．ignoring the average because of the frequency by which it is reviewed |
| A．The number of the nodes in the network |
| B．The manner of the connection between the nodes. |
| C．The decision of which nodes to be colored. |
| D．The influence of the network on the nodes. |
| A．Majority illusion rarely bas impacts except in political blogs field. |
| B．The majority illusion on social networks relies on it that people you follow post more than you |
| C．The essence of successful opinion spread is to initiate the trend with well-connected sharers. |
| D．The spread scale of ideas on networks mainly depends on the quality of content. |
| A．thoroughly understand the concept of majority illusion |
| B．accurately figure out who is the powerful person to affect others |
| C．definitely decide who are the target audience for the promotion |
| D．successfully convince the influencers to practice certain action |
| A．The social network vision that tricks your mind. |
| B．Who is stealing your network identity? |
| C．Minority network opinion spread, curse or blessing? |
| D．Have you been misled during the last political voting? |
