Preference for Number of Friends in Online Social Networks

Fanhui Meng, Haoming Sun, Jiarong Xie, Chengjun Wang, Jiajing Wu and Yanqing Hu
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Fanhui Meng: School of Systems Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Haoming Sun: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Jiarong Xie: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Chengjun Wang: School of Journalism and Communication, Computational Communication Collaboratory, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
Jiajing Wu: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, China
Yanqing Hu: Department of Statistics and Data Science, College of Science, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China

Future Internet, 2021, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: Preferences or dislikes for specific numbers are ubiquitous in human society. In traditional Chinese culture, people show special preference for some numbers, such as 6, 8, 10, 100, 200, etc. By analyzing the data of 6.8 million users of Sina Weibo, one of the largest online social media platforms in China, we discover that users exhibit a distinct preference for the number 200, i.e., a significant fraction of users prefer to follow 200 friends. This number, which is very close to the Dunbar number that predicts the cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships, motivates us to investigate how the preference for numbers in traditional Chinese culture is reflected on social media. We systematically portray users who prefer 200 friends and analyze their several important social features, including activity, popularity, attention tendency, regional distribution, economic level, and education level. We find that the activity and popularity of users with the preference for the number 200 are relatively lower than others. They are more inclined to follow popular users, and their social portraits change relatively slowly. Besides, users who have a stronger preference for the number 200 are more likely to be located in regions with underdeveloped economies and education. That indicates users with the preference for the number 200 are likely to be vulnerable groups in society and are easily affected by opinion leaders.

Keywords: big data; online social networks; human behavior; number preference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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