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The propagation of online memes is initially influenced by meme creators and secondarily by meme consumers, whose individual sharing decisions accumulate to determine total meme propagation. We characterize this as a sender/receiver…
It is commonly believed that information spreads between individuals like a pathogen, with each exposure by an informed friend potentially resulting in a naive individual becoming infected. However, empirical studies of social media suggest…
Social network sites allow users to publicly tag people in their posts. These tagged posts allow users to share to both the general public and a targeted audience, dynamically assembled via notifications that alert the people mentioned. We…
Digital networks have profoundly transformed the ways in which individuals interact, exchange information, and establish connections, leading to the emergence of phenomena such as virality, misinformation cascades, and online polarization.…
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now widely used to facilitate social interaction, but its impact on social relationships and communication is not well understood. We study the social consequences of one of the most pervasive AI…
This paper examines artificial intelligence (AI) companionship as a site where intimate relations are simultaneously produced, extracted from, and governed through datafied systems. Drawing on critical data studies and platform studies, we…
We present a computational approach for estimating emotion contagion on social media networks. Built on a foundation of psychology literature, our approach estimates the degree to which the perceivers' emotional states (positive or…
Artificial intelligence (AI) developers are increasingly building language models with warm and empathetic personas that millions of people now use for advice, therapy, and companionship. Here, we show how this creates a significant…
Memetic algorithms are techniques that orchestrate the interplay between population-based and trajectory-based algorithmic components. In particular, some memetic models can be regarded under this broad interpretation as a group of…
Interpersonal communication plays a key role in managing people's emotions, especially on digital platforms. Studies have shown that people use social media and consume online content to regulate their emotions and find support for rest and…
Internet memes have become a dominant method of communication; at the same time, however, they are also increasingly being used to advocate extremism and foster derogatory beliefs. Nonetheless, we do not have a firm understanding as to…
Millions of people now turn to artificial intelligence (AI) systems for personal advice, guidance, and support. Such systems can be sycophantic, frequently affirming users' views and beliefs. Across five preregistered studies (N = 3,075…
Among different aspects of social networks, dynamics have been proposed to simulate how opinions can be transmitted. In this study, we propose a model that simulates the communication in an online social network, in which the posts are…
AI companion chatbots, such as those offered by Replika and CharacterAI, increasingly function as always-available companions that provide empathy, validation, and support. While these systems appear to meet basic needs for connection,…
Modern technology has drastically changed the way we interact and consume information. For example, online social platforms allow for seamless communication exchanges at an unprecedented scale. However, we are still bounded by cognitive and…
Individuals are turning to increasingly anthropomorphic, general-purpose chatbots for AI companionship, rather than roleplay-specific platforms. However, not much is known about how individuals perceive and conduct their relationships with…
This work considers the problem of Distributed Mean Estimation (DME) over networks with intermittent connectivity, where the goal is to learn a global statistic over the data samples localized across distributed nodes with the help of a…
Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal contents with others which may add comments. Recent studies highlighted how the emotions expressed in a post affect others' posts, eliciting a congruent emotion. So far, no…
As generative AI chatbots become more personalized and emotionally responsive, they increasingly serve as companions, friends, and romantic partners. Yet these relationships are accompanied by significant uncertainty: users question the…
Social media algorithms are thought to amplify variation in user beliefs, thus contributing to radicalization. However, quantitative evidence on how algorithms and user preferences jointly shape harmful online engagement is limited. I…