shrug you can model anything as an illness if it has vaguely the same characteristics. Just needs some ability to spread via connections, and some ability to cu

shrug you can model anything as an illness if it has vaguely the same characteristics. Just needs some ability to spread via connections, and some ability to cure a node and make it immune to reinfection at the same time (for example, getting over the sickness and becoming immune, dying of smallpox, or getting bored of MySpace). I guess you could attempt to model a person's use of a social network as a result of attractors and repulsors. Attractors could be wanting to stay in touch with friends. Repulsors cold be simple apathy, or lack of novelty. When the balance of the two drops enough, you get bored of Facebook (or whatever), and stop caring about it. ...anyhow, the study uses a funky metric/proxy (google search trends...). They claim it works.