In this blog the author Scott Sanders discusses how the rapid advancement of new technologies is allowing a new type of collective swarming to occur. In his post Sanders argues that newer communication tools such as blogs, wiki, and mobile phones have allowed individuals to reorder their lives and coordinate actions in a previously impossible manner. According to the post, this availability of many-to-many forms of communication creates a necessary condition for the production of smart mobs, mobile ad hoc social networks, which are the result of individuals using personal communication technologies to coordinate collective action. Smart mobs seem to share at least some characteristics with the emergent behavior of swarm systems. However, there is one important difference between characteristic swarming behavior and that of smart mobs; individual human beings have considerable intellect. While there are several documented examples of smart mobs displaying emergent behavior, it is most important to consider the cognitive mechanisms and the network structures that create the prerequisite conditions for smart mob formation.

Sanders theorizes that the diffusion of mobile phones and SMS (text-messaging) services has been a significant factor in the development of smart mobs. His reasoning is that first, SMS is an asynchronous communication which allows its users to exert more cognitive effort on expressing and editing thoughts. Second, technological constraints force messages to be brief and to the point allowing them to be created and sent quickly. SMS technology allows brief written messages of a maximum of 160 characters to be sent and received via mobile phones. Furthermore, messages can be sent or forwarded to everyone in an individual’s address book. This is allows a message to be disseminated more quickly than a traditional phone tree where each individual would have to be contacted separately, thereby allowing large networks to be mobilized relatively quickly. Finally, SMS messages are sent to mobile phones rather than email inboxes or hard lines.

Threshold models of collective action is the explanation Sander’s uses as to why individuals would participate in smart mobs in the first place. The argument hinges upon individuals conducting a cost-benefit analysis which weighs the rewards of engaging in the behavior against the possible repercussions. The more people that choose to participate in particular actions the less likely an individual will be held accountable for their behavior. Some individuals require very few individuals to participate prior to joining in, while others may wait for a majority of the population to engage in a behavior before to taking action. So these collective actons would appear to have a cascading effect, but Sander’s post goes on to suggest that socially identifying with other members of the smart mob aids in its success. While it is true that in standard swarms with thresholds it is not necessary for the nodes to share social characteristics, in smart mobs it seems to be a defining characteristic. The participants in smart mobs usually do not know each other directly, so they connect with each other by forming a group identity that they associate with and use as the reason for participation.

Both proximity and homophily may provide partial explanations of how smart mobs form. If mobile phone address books are merely subsets of our social networks, then small world network structures that take into account proximity suggests that a bulk of message recipients will be geographically proximal. This is important because smart mobs gather relatively quickly. Proximal individuals would be able to reasonably travel to the appointed destination without undue effort. Furthermore, this structure also suggests that individuals who would be constrained from participating in smart mobs by geographical distance would be less likely to receive the initiating message. Of course, proximities constraints on smart mob participation likely play little role in online smart mobs. Homophily may also play an important role in the spread of the initial smart mob message. If individuals are more likely to form social linkages with others that they perceive to be similar to themselves then individuals whose social identity is activated by a message are more likely to pass along that message to others than those who do not share that social identity. Not only would homophily facilitate the dissemination of messages but it might also act as a filtering mechanism to prevent people to whom the message would be irrelevant from receiving it. People who do not identify with the message may be less likely to pass the message on to others. As a result, the message is spread among those for whom it activates a social identity, and disregarded by those for whom it does not.

Smart mobs have been used purposefully to accomplish tasks impossible for a single hierarchical organization. Many of the same conditions that allow smart mobs to form also create conditions in which they can display emergent behavior. First, the nature of many-to-many communication mediums means that leadership is decentralized. This means that disabling one node in the network will not cripple it. A notable example of this is the Direct Action Network which used mobile communication devices to coordinate protest of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Arresting “ring leaders” did not slow the attacks or seriously hamper coordination of efforts. Second, human beings are autonomous and make the choice to submerge their personal identity in favor of a social one. Furthermore, as individuals they have street level data and do not have an overall picture of the scenario. The conciseness of text messages mean that complex strategies cannot be laid out in detail but must evolve as events unfold. Finally, the high connectivity provided by SMS technology allows individuals to coordinate action by converging on a target from many directions and then dispersing just as quickly. This phenomenon has been labeled “swarming” in the contexts of political protests but can also be observed in contexts as diverse as celebrity watching or article editing on wikipedia. As a result of the role peer influence plays in a smart mob, the network structure of a smart mob, and the high connectivity that characterizes it, smart mobs can be highly adaptive and unpredictable.