Online social networks can be “incestuous”; that is, information tends to travel within a limited social circle. In contrast, viruses—caught from someone who sneezes on the bus, for example—aren’t limited or discriminatory.
Online social networks can be “incestuous”; that is, information tends to travel within a limited social circle. In contrast, viruses—caught from someone who sneezes on the bus, for example—aren’t limited or discriminatory.
Is Information a Virus?
Santa Fe Institute
http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/is-information-a-virus/
New research suggests that “viral information” spreads in a very different way than an actual biological or computer virus does. According to mathematician (and SFI External Professor) Steven Strogatz, online social networks can be “incestuous”; that is, information tends to travel within a limited social circle. In contrast, viruses—caught from someone who sneezes on the bus, for example—aren’t limited or discriminatory.