Context-Aware Prediction of User Engagement on Online Social Platforms

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Peters, Heinrich, Liu, Yozen, Barbieri, Francesco, Baten, Raiyan Abdul, Matz, Sandra C., Bos, Maarten W.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2023
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author Peters, Heinrich
Liu, Yozen
Barbieri, Francesco
Baten, Raiyan Abdul
Matz, Sandra C.
Bos, Maarten W.
author_facet Peters, Heinrich
Liu, Yozen
Barbieri, Francesco
Baten, Raiyan Abdul
Matz, Sandra C.
Bos, Maarten W.
contents The success of online social platforms hinges on their ability to predict and understand user behavior at scale. Here, we present data suggesting that context-aware modeling approaches may offer a holistic yet lightweight and potentially privacy-preserving representation of user engagement on online social platforms. Leveraging deep LSTM neural networks to analyze more than 100 million Snapchat sessions from almost 80.000 users, we demonstrate that patterns of active and passive use are predictable from past behavior (R2=0.345) and that the integration of context features substantially improves predictive performance compared to the behavioral baseline model (R2=0.522). Features related to smartphone connectivity status, location, temporal context, and weather were found to capture non-redundant variance in user engagement relative to features derived from histories of in-app behaviors. Further, we show that a large proportion of variance can be accounted for with minimal behavioral histories if momentary context is considered (R2=0.442). These results indicate the potential of context-aware approaches for making models more efficient and privacy-preserving by reducing the need for long data histories. Finally, we employ model explainability techniques to glean preliminary insights into the underlying behavioral mechanisms. Our findings are consistent with the notion of context-contingent, habit-driven patterns of active and passive use, underscoring the value of contextualized representations of user behavior for predicting user engagement on social platforms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_14533
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Context-Aware Prediction of User Engagement on Online Social Platforms
Peters, Heinrich
Liu, Yozen
Barbieri, Francesco
Baten, Raiyan Abdul
Matz, Sandra C.
Bos, Maarten W.
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
Social and Information Networks
The success of online social platforms hinges on their ability to predict and understand user behavior at scale. Here, we present data suggesting that context-aware modeling approaches may offer a holistic yet lightweight and potentially privacy-preserving representation of user engagement on online social platforms. Leveraging deep LSTM neural networks to analyze more than 100 million Snapchat sessions from almost 80.000 users, we demonstrate that patterns of active and passive use are predictable from past behavior (R2=0.345) and that the integration of context features substantially improves predictive performance compared to the behavioral baseline model (R2=0.522). Features related to smartphone connectivity status, location, temporal context, and weather were found to capture non-redundant variance in user engagement relative to features derived from histories of in-app behaviors. Further, we show that a large proportion of variance can be accounted for with minimal behavioral histories if momentary context is considered (R2=0.442). These results indicate the potential of context-aware approaches for making models more efficient and privacy-preserving by reducing the need for long data histories. Finally, we employ model explainability techniques to glean preliminary insights into the underlying behavioral mechanisms. Our findings are consistent with the notion of context-contingent, habit-driven patterns of active and passive use, underscoring the value of contextualized representations of user behavior for predicting user engagement on social platforms.
title Context-Aware Prediction of User Engagement on Online Social Platforms
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Human-Computer Interaction
Social and Information Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.14533