The Power Law of Groups

There have been many times in my classes where a professor divided the students into groups. In these groups, regardless of the class, there was always one person who spoke the most and led the discussion by default (not me). Sometimes it’s because the other students and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Other times, it’s because the one person either already said an idea that we thought about or because the one person’s idea was really great and the rest of us went with it. What happens if you eliminate the face to face interaction? Would everyone contribute equally or would the same thing occur?

In a TED talk from 2005 titled “Institutions vs. Collaboration,” Clay Shirky gave an example of Flickr photograph tagged “Iraq.” He found that 529 photographers posted 5,445 photos. Of these, he found that 10 % of the photographers took 75% of the photos. Shirky stated that power law distribution occurs in systems where people could contribute to as much or as little content as they like (Shirky, 2005). Power law is a possible explanation for what happens in my group interactions. What happens, however, if we’re supposed to contribute equally?

Curious, I decided to test power law distribution by reviewing the content on our class’ “Internet, Libraries, Thinking” blog. By the end of the semester, each of the 15 students should have contributed at least eight entries to the publication. As of Oct. 27, 2015 (mid-term), 11 students posted 28 entries (there are 36 posts, but eight of them are from the professor and his colleague). Of these, 72% of the content came from only four students. What this means is that not only is power law distribution occurs in person and online, but I and the majority of my classmates also need to get cracking on our blog posts.

Reference

Shirky, C. (2005, July). Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration (video file). Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration?language=en