Data from: How the online social networks are used: dialogs-based structure of MySpace

Quantitative study of collective dynamics in online social networks is a
new challenge based on the abundance of empirical data. Conclusions,
however, may depend on factors such as user's psychology profiles and
their reasons to use the online contacts. In this study, we have compiled
and analysed two datasets from MySpace. The data contain networked
dialogues occurring within a specified time depth, high temporal
resolution and texts of messages, in which the emotion valence is assessed
by using the SentiStrength classifier. Performing a comprehensive
analysis, we obtain three groups of results: dynamic topology of the
dialogues-based networks have a characteristic structure with Zipf's
distribution of communities, low link reciprocity and disassortative
correlations. Overlaps supporting ‘weak-ties’ hypothesis are found to
follow the laws recently conjectured for online games. Long-range temporal
correlations and persistent fluctuations occur in the time series of
messages carrying positive (negative) emotion; patterns of user
communications have dominant positive emotion (attractiveness) and strong
impact of circadian cycles and interactivity times longer than 1 day.
Taken together, these results give a new insight into the functioning of
online social networks and unveil the importance of the amount of
information and emotion that is communicated along the social links. All
data used in this study are fully anonymized.