Are Online Parasites Really Different from Lurkers?

With the development of digital technology, the internet environment has dramatically changed the way people share information, which has been changed by different types of sources, making it convenient to obtain information. The lurking phenomenon in the network is becoming increasingly common, and previous studies have been conducted on lurkers on the internet with shifting focus from active users to passive users. Under these circumstances, this tries to conceptualize a new type of passive users, titled as “online parasites” who focus on obtaining information by utilizing the internet or their host to achieve their other purposes. The aim is to deeply understand these users and clearly distinguish them from other types of users such as lurkers

SocialLink: exploiting graph embeddings to link DBpedia entities to Twitter profiles

SocialLink is a project designed to match social media profiles on Twitter to corresponding entities in DBpedia. Built to bridge the vibrant Twitter social media world and the Linked Open Data cloud, SocialLink enables knowledge transfer between the two, both assisting Semantic Web practitioners in better harvesting the vast amounts of information available on Twitter and allowing leveraging of DBpedia data for social media analysis tasks. In this paper, we further extend the original SocialLink approach by exploiting graph-based features based on both DBpedia and Twitter, represented as graph embeddings learned from vast amounts of unlabeled data. The introduction of such new features required to redesign our deep neural network-based candidate selection algorithm and, as a result, we experimentally demonstrate a significant improvement of the performances of SocialLink

Inferring user interests in microblogging social networks: a survey

With the growing popularity of microblogging services such as Twitter in recent years, an increasing number of users are using these services in their daily lives. The huge volume of information generated by users raises new opportunities in various applications and areas. Inferring user interests plays a significant role in providing personalized recommendations on microblogging services, and also on third-party applications providing social logins via these services, especially in cold-start situations. In this survey, we review user modeling strategies with respect to inferring user interests from previous studies. To this end, we focus on four dimensions of inferring user interest profiles: (1) data collection, (2) representation of user interest profiles, (3) construction and enhancement of user interest profiles, and (4) the evaluation of the constructed profiles. Through this survey, we aim to provide an overview of state-of-the-art user modeling strategies for inferring user interest profiles on microblogging social networks with respect to the four dimensions. For each dimension, we review and summarize previous studies based on specified criteria. Finally, we discuss some challenges and opportunities for future work in this research domain

Desconectados: indivíduos que saíram de plataformas de redes sociais: motivações, perfis e estratégias de retenção

Esta dissertação explora a temática do não-uso e do abandono de plataformas de redes sociais em contraste com o paradigma de conectividade "24/7", numa sociedade em que os fluxos sociais e de comunicação são mediados através destas plataformas. Através de uma estratégia de "snowballing" engrenada na aplicação de um questionário e de uma estratégia de "networking", realizaram-se 20 entrevistas semiestruturadas, das quais se extraiu o testemunho dos desistentes de plataformas de redes sociais no formato de uma amostra de conveniência. Os entrevistados foram selecionados de acordo com o seu encaixe no critério para a condição de "desconectado". A investigação faz o levantamento das motivações que levam os indivíduos a desativar ou eliminar os seus perfis "online", relacionando o tipo de motivações com a existência de grupos sociais específicos. Perante um objeto de estudo pouco explorado, são traçados e analisados os hábitos de consumo digitais da amostra, comprovando a inserção destes indivíduos no meio digital. Para além disto, e através do "feedback" dos não-utilizadores desistentes, foi possível reunir um conjunto de medidas e estratégias de retenção para a renovação do "engagement" destes indivíduos e consequente reincidência nestas plataformas. Conclui-se que apesar da sua posição de desconexão para com as redes sociais digitais, estes indivíduos possuem os recursos, o acesso e as habilidades para uma utilização plena, distanciando-se, pelos seus perfis escolarizados, dos indivíduos reféns da exclusão digital involuntária. Os "desconectados" da amostra postulam a desconexão digital enquanto estilo de vida, forma de resistência e protesto ou como mecanismo de proteção.This dissertation explores the theme of non-use and abandonment of social networking platforms in contrast to the "24/7" connectivity paradigm, in a society in which social and communication flows are mediated through these platforms. Through a snowbolling strategy geared to the application of a questionnaire and a networking strategy, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted, from which the testimony of dropouts from social networking platforms was extracted in the form of a convenience sample. The interviewees were selected according to their fit in the criterion for the "disconnected" condition. The investigation surveys the motivations that lead individuals to deactivate or eliminate their online profiles, relating the type of motivations to the existence of specific social groups. As a unusual object of study, the digital consumption habits of the sample are traced and analyzed, proving the insertion of these individuals in the digital environment. In addition, and through feedback from dropouts non-users it was possible to gather a set of measures and retention strategies for renewing the engagement of these individuals and consequent recurrence on these platforms. It is concluded that despite their disconnected position towards digital social networks, these individuals have the resources, access and skills for full use, distancing themselves, due to their schooling profiles, from the individuals affected by the involuntary digital exclusion. Those "disconnected" from the sample postulate digital disconnection as a lifestyle, a form of resistance and protest or as a protection mechanism

Procrastination on social networking sites: types, triggers, and socio-technical countermeasures.

Procrastination has become an important field in academic research and refers to a voluntary delay in performing tasks that need to be done. Procrastination can lead to negative consequences such as low academic performance, low work productivity and anxiety. Numerous studies have examined the factors that may lead people to procrastinate, such as low self-efficacy, low self-regulation and low self-esteem. Social networking sites (SNSs) may facilitate procrastination; for example, notifications could be a distraction that promotes procrastination for people, preventing them from performing their original tasks. This Thesis aims to understand how procrastination on SNS occurs, the role of SNS design in triggering it and how to engineer social media to combat it through existing and novel features. Then, this knowledge will be used to develop a method to combat procrastination on SNS. This method will be informed by psychological theories as well as technical and socio-technical countermeasures. To achieve this goal, a mixed methods approach was conducted with SNS users, including focus groups and diary studies, co-design sessions and surveys. The results of these studies helped to develop a method that helps users to gain more control over their procrastination on SNS. The developed method is supported by persuasive techniques including reminders and suggestions, which help to persuade users to change their usage style without forcing them toward the change. Finally, the developed method was evaluated with SNS users who self-declared as procrastinators on SNS. The evaluation study examines five aspects: clarity, procrastination awareness, coverage, effectiveness and acceptance. The results demonstrated that the combating procrastination on SNS method (D-Crastinate) helps to improve users’ control over their procrastination

Concealing interests of passive users in social media

User profiling has existed in the social media since their inception and has supported most of their business model. Even if users do not actively share the information about themselves on the social media (so-called passive users), they can still be profiled based on their location and who they follow. In this paper, we present a system that leverages the linking of followed (popular) Twitter users to DBpedia, and the information therein contained, to help users concealing their digital footprint. Specifically, our approach helps a passive Twitter user to stay private by proposing a list of additional profiles to follow that would confuse the social media’s inference pipeline and prevent it from inferring useful information about that passive user and his interests