Unknown

Dataset Information

0

Macroscopic patterns of interacting contagions are indistinguishable from social reinforcement.


ABSTRACT: From fake news to innovative technologies, many contagions spread as complex contagions via a process of social reinforcement, where multiple exposures are distinct from prolonged exposure to a single source.1 Contrarily, biological agents such as Ebola or measles are typically thought to spread as simple contagions.2 Here, we demonstrate that these different spreading mechanisms can have indistinguishable population-level dynamics once multiple contagions interact. In the social context, our results highlight the challenge of identifying and quantifying spreading mechanisms, such as social reinforcement,3 in a world where an innumerable amount of ideas, memes and behaviors interact. In the biological context, this parallel allows the use of complex contagions to effectively quantify the non-trivial interactions of infectious diseases.

SUBMITTER: Hebert-Dufresne L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8247125 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

altmetric image

Publications

Macroscopic patterns of interacting contagions are indistinguishable from social reinforcement.

Hébert-Dufresne Laurent L   Scarpino Samuel V SV   Young Jean-Gabriel JG  

Nature physics 20200224


From fake news to innovative technologies, many contagions spread as complex contagions via a process of social reinforcement, where multiple exposures are distinct from prolonged exposure to a single source.<sup>1</sup> Contrarily, biological agents such as Ebola or measles are typically thought to spread as simple contagions.<sup>2</sup> Here, we demonstrate that these different spreading mechanisms can have indistinguishable population-level dynamics once multiple contagions interact. In the  ...[more]

Similar Datasets

| S-EPMC5333634 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5353708 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5522431 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4127887 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC4792927 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC10227359 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7392337 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7451209 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC7660465 | biostudies-literature
| S-EPMC5973832 | biostudies-literature