Information-sharing tendency on Twitter and time evolution of tweeting

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy and Center for Theoretical Physics, Seoul National University Seoul 151-747, Korea
² Department of Media Communication, Sungshin University - Seoul 136-742, Korea
³ Department of Geography, Sungshin University - Seoul 136-742, Korea

^(a) kslee@sungshin.ac.kr
^(b) mychoi@snu.ac.kr

Received: 2 January 2013
Accepted: 20 February 2013

Abstract

While topics on Twitter may be categorized according to their predictability and sustainability, some topics have characteristics depending on the time scale. Here we propose a good measure for the transition of sustainability, which we call the information-sharing tendency, and find that the unpredictability on Twitter is provoked by the exposure of Twitter users to external environments, e.g., mass media and other social network services. In addition, it is demonstrated that the numbers of articles and comments on on-line newspapers serve as plausible measures of exposure. From such measures of exposure, the time evolution of tweeting can be described, when the information-sharing tendency is known.