Copyright © 2012 Qiang Yan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Through analyzing the data about the releases, comment, and forwarding of 120,000 microblog messages in a year, this paper finds out that the intervals between information releases and comment follow a power law; besides, the analysis of data in each 24 hours reveals obvious differences between microblogging and website visit, email, instant communication, and the use of mobile phone, reflecting how people use fragments of time via mobile internet technology. The paper points out the significant influence of the user's activity on the intervals of information releases and thus demonstrates a positive correlation between the activity and the power exponent. The paper also points out that user's activity is influenced by social identity in a positive way. The simulation results based on the social identity mechanism fit well with the actual data, which indicates that this mechanism is a reasonable way to explain people's behavior in the mobile Internet.