Volume 4 Issue 3 March 2012

Editorial

Social Networks and the Rule of 150

In an earlier issue (Feb 2012), we have seen the democratizing power and other benefits of social technologies including the small world phenomenon and promised to look into the social technology clutter created by this great revolution. To understand the magnitude of clutter of social technologies, one should know how relationship multiplies in a network. A network consists of members (nodes/vortexes) and relationships (ties/links/connections) between members. The number of possible connections between members increase dramatically as the number of members increase in the network (see table and diagram). As could be
Table: Increase in number of relationships as size of group increases No. of No. of member connectio s ns 2 1 3 3 4 6 5 10 10 45 15 105

seen in the table, in a group of 5, one has to keep track of 10 relationships. A small increase in the size of the group creates a significant additional social and intellectual burden. For example, just a three-fold increase from a group of 5 to 15 increases relationships by more than ten-fold from 10 to 105 (see table). In other words, the amount of information processing required to know other members of network increases enormously in this way.

Let me digress and put some facts before you. Human evolution took place when men lived in small groups on a face-to-face basis much the before adaptive agricultural mechanism era. of
Diagram representing increase in number of relationships as size of group increases

Naturally

human biology is tuned to have strong feelings about few people, short distances and in brief intervals of time. Thus there exists a natural limit to social channel capacity of human beings. The amount of space in the brain for certain kind of information is called channel capacity. A normal human being is able to distinguish about 6 or 7 finer categories of information like sound level, sugar level in tea and so on. However in case of strong feelings like death or devastating events, he could
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accommodate and remember 10 to 15 people known to him. With this limitation as a human being, one wonders how we are coping with thousands of people in social networks, particularly on the Internet. The internet, the brain, the web of reactions in a living cell, power grids and the economy are some examples of networks.

Humans, apart from other primates like monkeys, chimps and baboons, have biggest brain (neocortex) to deal with complex thoughts, reasoning and the complexities of larger social groups. Based on the neocoretex ratio developed by Anthropologists the rule of 150 is derived for social channel capacity of human beings. That is 150 is the maximum number of individuals with whom one can have genuinely social relationship. Interestingly pre-historic hunter societies used to split their colony once it approached 150. If the rule of 150 is true, what happens to hundreds (even thousands) of mouseclick friendship relations created on social networks? M S Sridhar sridhar@informindia.co.in

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Editors Post Script Miscellany Recording Industry comes down heavily on Google and Wiki for stopping PIPA and SOPA. US Congress finally set aside PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). Enraged Chief of Recording Industry Association of America, Cary H Sherman comes down heavily on both Google and Wikipedia saying that these platforms preach net-neutrality to the Internet pipes, but they themselves do not properly distinguish digital protection from net monitoring responsibilities, neutral reporting from editorial facts and censorship from privacy. He felt Wikipedia, Google and others manufactured controversy by unfairly equating SOPA with censorship as it is a loaded and inflammatory word more suitable for crackdowns on pro-democracy websites by China or Iran. They are duping their users into accepting as truth what are merely self-serving political declarations. Eleventh hour flood of emails and phone calls to Congress stopped the legislation with misinformation. Citing that music sales is less than half since 1999 and reduction of direct employment in the industry by more than half, he asks what is the alternative to combat online piracy of music, movies, books and other creative works and is it not a constitutional and economic imperative to protect them from theft?

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-08/computing/31037154_1_websites-sopa-censorship Wikipedia: What it doesn't tell you Cary H. Sherman, New York Times Feb 8, 2012, 04.17PM IST

Call to boycott Elsevier Journals: Cambridge Mathematician Timothy Growers call to boycott Elsevier journals (blog post dated January 21, 2012) lead to signing online pledge by more than 3000 authors/scientists. The reasons include high prices of journals, mandatory bundled/ package offer and supporting Research Work Act. Elsevier publishes more than 2000 journals with 36% profit. It is not the first time that academicians raised their voice against commercial publishers. The editorial boards of Topology (Elsevier) resigned in 2006 and that of K-Theory (Springer) in 2007. http://copyfight.corante.com/archives/2012/01/31/tyler_neylon_on_what_elsevier_shoul d_do.php http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/feb/02/academics-boycott-publisher-elsevier)

Li-Fi, the Wireless communication after Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: Tripping or flickering visible light from screens, which is not perceptible to human eye, can be detected by camera on phones to transmit digital data up to 10 meters in future. LEDs which are going to replace the incandescent lights and fluorescent tubes in future are ideal to emit the required light and become the hot spots for data exchange. Two limitations are: nonpenetration of walls by ordinary light waves and need for photo detectors on LEDs. The advantages are: unlike Wi-Fi, there is no limitation of radio spectrum and it can be used safely in the areas like aircrafts and operation theaters without any interference with radio signals.

Privacy Laws to prevent commercial use of personal information: Interestingly the netizen population of China and India put together is more than the citizen population of America and Europe. Anonymity and privacy are almost lost on the Internet due to crawlers, history stealing web sites and mushrooming of like buttons. Google did capture personal data from unsecured Wi-Fi networks of houses. There is an intense debate on the need for anonymity and privacy issues. Protecting customers personal information from commercial exploitation is a legal obligation and the law exists in USA, Europe, China and India. A clear privacy policy spelling out what information is collected, how it is used, how user can change or delete it, with whom it is shared and how customers can opt out of it are necessary. The law in Europe is so stringent
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(equally so in China and India) that companies doing business with Europeans are also required to comply with the laws. Further, as much as 62% of Europeans do not trust that Internet companies protect their personal information. Even web pages are required to provide special icons so that customers click and prevent companies to track their activities. Business houses naturally feel that all this is leading to costly trade barriers in global digital economy.

Face book, the social network monarch: The hot news since last issue is that Face book (FB) has become a hundred billion dollar company over a decade beating many century-old traditional companies like Boeing. With 845 million monthly active users (expected to reach 1 billion shortly) is like a third most populous country on the earth. Interestingly, it acquired such extensive data on a huge population across the world in a short time while making large profits. The membership with FB is de facto virtual passport or ID to enter many other online systems and services. Though the purposes are different, compare with Unique Identification Authority of Indias AADHAR which is spending thousands of Crores of Rupees and yet not reached half the target number (400m)! FB has no nearest competitor in social networking and unlike MySpace which started declining in 2005, FB is expected to reach 3 billion members by 2016. FB is a profitable social utility hoping to add social discovery features and virtual currency (online payment service). Though likely to be haunted by privacy laws and anti-trust regulations, this unopposed social network monarch has immense commercial prospects cheered by online advertisers. How 25000 turmeric farmers of a village called Sangli in Maharashtra steered through the difficult times of price crash to communicate through FB to collectively hold back supply and to boycott auction lead to double the price in a matter of 10 days is a success story of not only FB, but even the network technology for effective information exchange to eliminate middle men and organize collective strategy. True, larger networks are strategically more beneficial for political, business and commercial campaigns. But how this grand success of social technology industry matters to ordinary people who made one billion memberships possible for FB depends on how large a network you and I need (Editors desk). There are some postings like 5 most annoying Face book habits on FB itself. M S Sridhar sridhar@informindia.co.in