Delay model for the dynamics of information units in the digital environment

PINTO, SEBASTIÁN; PARDO PINTOS, ALEJANDRO; BALENZUELA, PABLO; TREVISAN, MARCOS A.

Frontiers in Complex Systems

FRONTIERS MEDIA

Año: 2024 vol. 2

The digital revolution has transformed the exchange of information between people,blurring the traditional roles of sources and recipients as active and passive entities.To study this, we build on a publicly available database of quotes, organized as unitsof information flowing through media and blogs with minimal distortion. Building onthis, we offer an innovative interpretation of the observed temporal patterns througha minimal model with two ingredients: a two-way feedback between sources andrecipients, and a delay in the media’s response to activity on blogs. Our modelsuccessfully fits the variety of observed patterns, revealing different attention decaysin media and blogs, with rebounds of information typically occurring between 1 and4 days after the initial dissemination. More important perhaps, the model uncovers afunctional relationship between the rate of information flow from media to blogs andthe decay of public attention, suggesting a simplification in the mechanisms ofinformation exchange in digital media. Although further research is required togeneralize these findings fully, our results demonstrate that even a bare-bonesmodel can capture essential mechanisms of information dynamics in the digitalenvironment.