A recent study, titled “The Susceptibility Paradox in Online Social Influence,” reveals that individuals’ friends may be more susceptible to social influence than the individuals themselves. Luca Luceri, Jinyi Ye, Julie Jiang, and Emilio Ferrara contributed to this paper. They went on to share it at the 2025 International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM), held June 23-26, in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The researchers were particularly interested in how social interactions are shaped through the new social media platform X, or previously known as Twitter. Their investigation sought to differentiate between two types of sharing behaviors: influence-driven sharing and spontaneous sharing. Influence-driven sharing occurs when individuals post content after observing it within their network, while spontaneous sharing happens without any external influence from peers.
Exploring the Dynamics of Social Influence
The study highlights a significant finding: friends appear to be more vulnerable to social influence than the individuals themselves. This fits with the well-known Friendship Paradox, which states that friends usually have more friends than you do. The researchers primarily set out to test whether and how this influence changes depending on network dynamics.
Jinyi Ye, an ISI research assistant and first-year Ph.D. student in computer science at USC, found that compelling. She mentioned an unexpected clustering of users, especially among their own network.
“We could see they were connected and influenceable in the same way,” – Jinyi Ye.
Employing advanced data analysis techniques, the researchers sought to understand social influence on X. Their analysis went beyond simply counting incidents, looking at patterns of behavior to further inform our collective understanding of online interactions.
The Role of Network Position
The paper’s focus on social influence underscores that behavior is more than the sum of personal characteristics. It shows how important a person’s network position is in crafting the scope of that influence. Luca Luceri, a Research Assistant Professor at USC Viterbi School of Engineering, remarked on this relationship:
“It’s not just about who you are—it’s about where you are in a network, and who you’re connected to,” – Luca Luceri.
This view upends traditional ideas about individual characteristics determining vulnerability to manipulation. Rather, it argues that a person’s social context very much determines how they act online.
Their work studies how the susceptibility to social influence among individuals varies as a function of their network environment. This question is more pressing than ever in our highly connected digital world.
Implications for Understanding Online Behavior
There are positive applications of social influence that could be used for even greater impact. It’s important to note that social influence can have harmful effects. The network research team is researching to understand how influence works in different types of networks.
“Understanding how and where influence concentrates across a network is a first step toward mitigating its harmful effects,” – [source not specified].
People need to be conscious of who’s in their social bubble. Knowing how that plays out in the community they interact within online is just as important. As users navigate social media platforms, the study indicates that awareness of these influences can inform more mindful sharing practices.
