Global Patterns of Synchronization in Human Communications

摘要

Social media are transforming global communication and coordination. The dataderived from social media can reveal patterns of human behavior at all levelsand scales of society. Using geolocated Twitter data, we have quantifiedcollective behaviors across multiple scales, ranging from the commutes ofindividuals, to the daily pulse of 50 major urban areas and global patterns ofhuman coordination. Human activity and mobility patterns manifest the synchronyrequired for contingency of actions between individuals. Urban areas showregular cycles of contraction and expansion that resembles heartbeats linkedprimarily to social rather than natural cycles. Business hours and circadianrhythms influence daily cycles of work, recreation, and sleep. Different urbanareas have characteristic signatures of daily collective activities. Thedifferences are consistent with a new emergent global synchrony that couplesbehavior in distant regions across the world. A globally synchronized peak thatincludes exchange of ideas and information across Europe, Africa, Asia andAustralasia. We propose a dynamical model to explain the emergence of globalsynchrony in the context of increasing global communication and reproduce theobserved behavior. The collective patterns we observe show how socialinteractions lead to interdependence of behavior manifest in thesynchronization of communication. The creation and maintenance of temporallysensitive social relationships results in the emergence of complexity of thelarger scale behavior of the social system.