Associative nature of event participation dynamics: A network theory approach.
The affiliation with various social groups can be a critical factor when it comes to quality of life of each individual, making such groups an essential element of every society. The group dynamics, longevity and effectiveness strongly depend on group's ability to attract new members and keep them engaged in group activities. It was shown that high heterogeneity of scientist's engagement in conference activities of the specific scientific community depends on the balance between the numbers of previous attendances and non-attendances and is directly related to scientist's association with that community. Here we show that the same holds for leisure groups of the Meetup website and further quantify individual members' association with the group. We examine how structure of personal social networks is evolving with the event attendance. Our results show that member's increasing engagement in the group activities is primarily associated with the strengthening of already existing ties and increase in the bonding social capital. We also show that Meetup social networks mostly grow trough big events, while small events contribute to the groups cohesiveness.
Scientific Computing Laboratory, Center for the Study of Complex Systems, Institute of Physics Belgrade, University of Belgrade, Pregrevica 118, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia.|School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, P.O. Box 35-54, 11120 Belgrade, Serbia.
Jelena
J
Smiljanić
Scientific Computing Laboratory, Center for the Study of Complex Systems, Institute of Physics Belgrade, University of Belgrade, Pregrevica 118, 11080 Belgrade, Serbia.
Marija
M
Mitrović Dankulov
D000465:Algorithms; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D060756:Social Networking; D012944:Social Support