Walter Quattrociocchi
Biographic Data
| ID | 93421 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Walter Quattrociocchi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Walter |
| FAMILY NAME | Quattrociocchi |
| SIGNATURE | QUATTROCIOCCHI W |
| AFFILIATIONS | Sapienza University of Rome |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4374-9324 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Epistemia in the classroom
Social media and food
The rise of social media platforms has remarkably influenced everyday life, including how food is represented, shared, and perceived online. Yet, limited attention has been given to how the nutritional content shared on these platforms reflects and shapes users’ dietary preferences over time. This study investigates the relationship between social media recipe-sharing and nutritional patterns by analyzing approximately 8 million Instagram posts f…
Generative exaggeration in LLM social agents
We investigate how Large Language Models (LLMs) behave when simulating political discourse on social media. Leveraging 21 million interactions on X during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we construct LLM agents based on 1186 real users, prompting them to reply to politically salient tweets under controlled conditions. Agents are initialized either with minimal ideological cues (Zero Shot) or recent tweet history (Few Shot), allowing one-to-o…
From Niche to Mainstream
The architecture of public discourse has been profoundly reshaped by social media platforms, which mediate interactions at an unprecedented scale and complexity. This study analyzes user behavior across six platforms over 33 years, exploring how the size of conversations and communities influences dialogue dynamics. Our findings reveal that smaller platforms foster richer, more sustained interactions, while larger platforms drive broader but shor…
Examining the relationship between content length and engagement with news outlets on multiple social media platforms
The rise of social media has profoundly transformed the landscape of content production and dissemination, amplifying the competition for user attention within a scenario of information overabundance. To emerge from this overwhelming volume, content producers often act under the popular assumption that users favor shorter content, and that brevity enhances engagement. This study examines the relationship between news-related content and user enga…
Navigating child and adolescent mental health in the digital age
Since 2010, there has been a significant increase in mental health issues among children and adolescents, which coincides with the widespread use of social media (SM). While the exact relationship between SM use and psychiatric health remains unclear, growing evidence suggests that excessive screen time is linked to psychosocial symptoms. This article examines the importance of systematically assessing SM use as part of a comprehensive psychiatri…
Users Volatility on Reddit and Voat
Social media platforms behave like giant arenas where users can rely on different content and express their opinions through likes, comments, and shares. However, do users welcome different perspectives or only listen to their preferred narratives? This article examines how users explore the digital space and allocate their attention among communities on two social networks, Voat and Reddit. By analyzing a massive dataset of about 215 million com…
Comparing the Impact of Social Media Regulations on News Consumption
Users online tend to consume information adhering to their system of beliefs and ignore dissenting information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, users get exposed to a massive amount of information about a new topic having a high level of uncertainty. In this article, we analyze two social media that enforced opposite moderation methods, Twitter and Gab, to assess the interplay between news consumption and content regulation concerning COVID-19. We …
Analyzing the changing landscape of the Covid-19 vaccine debate on Twitter
The issue of vaccine hesitancy has posed a significant challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it increases the risk of undermining public health interventions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. While the swift development of vaccines represents a remarkable scientific achievement, it has also contributed to skepticism and apprehension among some populations. Against this backdrop, the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine by the Eur…
Growing polarization around climate change on social media
Climate change and political polarization are two of the twenty-first century’s critical socio-political issues. Here we investigate their intersection by studying the discussion around the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP) using Twitter data from 2014 to 2021. First, we reveal a large increase in ideological polarization during COP26, following low polarization between COP20 and COP25. Second, we show that this inc…
Economic and social consequences of human mobility restrictions under Covid-19
Significance This paper presents a large-scale analysis of the impact of lockdown measures introduced in response to the spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on socioeconomic conditions of Italian citizens. We leverage a massive near–real-time dataset of human mobility and we model mobility restrictions as an exogenous shock to the economy, similar to a natural disaster. We find that lockdown measures have a twofold effect: First, …
Measuring social response to different journalistic techniques on Facebook
Recent studies have shown that online users tend to select information that adheres to their system of beliefs, ignore information that does not, and join groups that share a common narrative. This information environment can elicit tribalism instead of informed debate, especially when issues are controversial. Algorithmic solutions, fact-checking initiatives, and many other approaches have shown limitations in dealing with this phenomenon, and h…
Polarization of the vaccination debate on Facebook
Anatomy of news consumption on Facebook
Significance Social media heavily changed the way we get informed and shape our opinions. Users’ polarization seems to dominate news consumption on Facebook. Through a massive analysis on 920 news outlets and 376 million users, we explore the anatomy of news consumption on Facebook on a global scale. We show that users tend to confine their attention on a limited set of pages, thus determining a sharp community structure among news outlets. Furth…
Mapping social dynamics on Facebook
Echo Chambers on Facebook
Echo Chambers
Recent findings showed that users on Facebook tend to select information that adhere to their system of beliefs and to form polarized groups – i.e., echo chambers. Such a tendency dominates information cascades and might affect public debates on social relevant issues. In this work we explore the structural evolution of communities of interest by accounting for users emotions and engagement. Focusing on the Facebook pages reporting on scientific …
Stability and Evolution of Scientific Networks
Selection in scientific networks
Analyzing the changing landscape of the Covid-19 vaccine debate on Twitter
The issue of vaccine hesitancy has posed a significant challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it increases the risk of undermining public health interventions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. While the swift development of vaccines represents a remarkable scientific achievement, it has also contributed to skepticism and apprehension among some populations. Against this backdrop, the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine by the Eur…
Selection in scientific networks
Selection in scientific networks
Stability and Evolution of Scientific Networks
Echo Chambers on Facebook
Echo Chambers
Recent findings showed that users on Facebook tend to select information that adhere to their system of beliefs and to form polarized groups – i.e., echo chambers. Such a tendency dominates information cascades and might affect public debates on social relevant issues. In this work we explore the structural evolution of communities of interest by accounting for users emotions and engagement. Focusing on the Facebook pages reporting on scientific …
Anatomy of news consumption on Facebook
Significance Social media heavily changed the way we get informed and shape our opinions. Users’ polarization seems to dominate news consumption on Facebook. Through a massive analysis on 920 news outlets and 376 million users, we explore the anatomy of news consumption on Facebook on a global scale. We show that users tend to confine their attention on a limited set of pages, thus determining a sharp community structure among news outlets. Furth…
Mapping social dynamics on Facebook
Polarization of the vaccination debate on Facebook
Economic and social consequences of human mobility restrictions under Covid-19
Significance This paper presents a large-scale analysis of the impact of lockdown measures introduced in response to the spread of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on socioeconomic conditions of Italian citizens. We leverage a massive near–real-time dataset of human mobility and we model mobility restrictions as an exogenous shock to the economy, similar to a natural disaster. We find that lockdown measures have a twofold effect: First, …
Measuring social response to different journalistic techniques on Facebook
Recent studies have shown that online users tend to select information that adheres to their system of beliefs, ignore information that does not, and join groups that share a common narrative. This information environment can elicit tribalism instead of informed debate, especially when issues are controversial. Algorithmic solutions, fact-checking initiatives, and many other approaches have shown limitations in dealing with this phenomenon, and h…
Growing polarization around climate change on social media
Climate change and political polarization are two of the twenty-first century’s critical socio-political issues. Here we investigate their intersection by studying the discussion around the United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP) using Twitter data from 2014 to 2021. First, we reveal a large increase in ideological polarization during COP26, following low polarization between COP20 and COP25. Second, we show that this inc…
Comparing the Impact of Social Media Regulations on News Consumption
Users online tend to consume information adhering to their system of beliefs and ignore dissenting information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, users get exposed to a massive amount of information about a new topic having a high level of uncertainty. In this article, we analyze two social media that enforced opposite moderation methods, Twitter and Gab, to assess the interplay between news consumption and content regulation concerning COVID-19. We …
Analyzing the changing landscape of the Covid-19 vaccine debate on Twitter
The issue of vaccine hesitancy has posed a significant challenge during the Covid-19 pandemic, as it increases the risk of undermining public health interventions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. While the swift development of vaccines represents a remarkable scientific achievement, it has also contributed to skepticism and apprehension among some populations. Against this backdrop, the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine by the Eur…
Users Volatility on Reddit and Voat
Social media platforms behave like giant arenas where users can rely on different content and express their opinions through likes, comments, and shares. However, do users welcome different perspectives or only listen to their preferred narratives? This article examines how users explore the digital space and allocate their attention among communities on two social networks, Voat and Reddit. By analyzing a massive dataset of about 215 million com…
Navigating child and adolescent mental health in the digital age
Since 2010, there has been a significant increase in mental health issues among children and adolescents, which coincides with the widespread use of social media (SM). While the exact relationship between SM use and psychiatric health remains unclear, growing evidence suggests that excessive screen time is linked to psychosocial symptoms. This article examines the importance of systematically assessing SM use as part of a comprehensive psychiatri…
Epistemia in the classroom
Social media and food
The rise of social media platforms has remarkably influenced everyday life, including how food is represented, shared, and perceived online. Yet, limited attention has been given to how the nutritional content shared on these platforms reflects and shapes users’ dietary preferences over time. This study investigates the relationship between social media recipe-sharing and nutritional patterns by analyzing approximately 8 million Instagram posts f…
Generative exaggeration in LLM social agents
We investigate how Large Language Models (LLMs) behave when simulating political discourse on social media. Leveraging 21 million interactions on X during the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we construct LLM agents based on 1186 real users, prompting them to reply to politically salient tweets under controlled conditions. Agents are initialized either with minimal ideological cues (Zero Shot) or recent tweet history (Few Shot), allowing one-to-o…
From Niche to Mainstream
The architecture of public discourse has been profoundly reshaped by social media platforms, which mediate interactions at an unprecedented scale and complexity. This study analyzes user behavior across six platforms over 33 years, exploring how the size of conversations and communities influences dialogue dynamics. Our findings reveal that smaller platforms foster richer, more sustained interactions, while larger platforms drive broader but shor…
Examining the relationship between content length and engagement with news outlets on multiple social media platforms
The rise of social media has profoundly transformed the landscape of content production and dissemination, amplifying the competition for user attention within a scenario of information overabundance. To emerge from this overwhelming volume, content producers often act under the popular assumption that users favor shorter content, and that brevity enhances engagement. This study examines the relationship between news-related content and user enga…
Social media (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (9 works) · Internet privacy (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Social Media and Politics (8 works) · Psychology (7 works) · World Wide Web (7 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Business (5 works)