Social Physics

Description

"Social Physics is a new way of understanding human behavior based on analysis of Big Data. The contributors to the Social Physics are a set of researchers who are connected through their association with the Human Dynamics Lab at MIT." (http://socialphysics.media.mit.edu/about/)

Key Book to Read

* Book: Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread – The Lessons From a New Science.by Alex Pentland

1. The Economist:

“Social Physics is filled with rich findings about what makes people tick. Using millions of data points measured over a long period of time in real settings, which Pentland calls ‘living laboratories,’ the author has monitored human behavior on an unprecedented scale…Pentland’s research also offers lessons for policymakers and business people. He advances a new way to protect privacy by creating something of a property right for personal information…Social Physics is a fascinating look at a new field by one of its principal geeks.” (http://socialphysics.media.mit.edu/book/)

2. Video review by Joe Brewer

at http://www.changestrategistforhumanity.com/book-review-of-social-physics-by-alex-pentland/ : "a new book by Alex Pentland at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory that goes into the mathematical tools and beneficial applications for what he calls “social physics” — the use of data-driven scientific models to improve organizations, cities, and society writ large."

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Example

Embedding Participation through Social Protocols and Social Physics

"An example of research into social software is the following:

Social Protocols define a social group as a particular kind of social network, and consistent with our algorithmic notion of Social Physics, groups are treated as an emergent property of certain types of rules, e.g. Social Protocols. Social Protocols frame the following seven conditions for any social network:

1. Fine grained tagging of the types of content that can be shared;

2. Terms and conditions under which certain types of content can be shared/distributed;

3. Types of interaction between parties, specifically, "speech act combinations" (request, question, introduce);

4. Network roles of participants in interactions between the parties;

5. Rules for inclusion and exclusion.

6. Triggers for dynamic assignment and revocation of participation rights.

7. The behaviors and metrics parties can see about one another.

The premise is that social control is not simply the consequence of brute force and coercion, but rather that people have evolved elaborate forms of self-organizing social control through innate "social emotions" such as, "shame and fame", a sense of reciprocity, affiliation, and peer based reputation. Hence, self-organization and social control can be scaled for large distributed networks of strangers and familiars through Social Protocols enable selective visibility for social signaling." (http://www.jclippinger.com/social.html)