Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Standard

Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter. / Bogers, Toine; Björneborn, Lennart.

Proceedings of the iConference 2013. IDEALS : iSchools, 2013. p. 196-208.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

Harvard

Bogers, T & Björneborn, L 2013, Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter. in Proceedings of the iConference 2013. iSchools, IDEALS, pp. 196-208, iConference 2013, Fort Worth, Texas, United States, 12/02/2013. https://doi.org/10.9776/13175

APA

Bogers, T., & Björneborn, L. (2013). Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter. In Proceedings of the iConference 2013 (pp. 196-208). iSchools. https://doi.org/10.9776/13175

Vancouver

Bogers T, Björneborn L. Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter. In Proceedings of the iConference 2013. IDEALS: iSchools. 2013. p. 196-208 https://doi.org/10.9776/13175

Author

Bogers, Toine ; Björneborn, Lennart. / Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter. Proceedings of the iConference 2013. IDEALS : iSchools, 2013. pp. 196-208

Bibtex

@inproceedings{19d58926bdc24a6f83bfd647a6895ba6,
title = "Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter",
abstract = "In this paper we present work on micro-serendipity: investigating everyday contexts, conditions, and attributes of serendipity as shared on Twitter. In contrast to related work, we deliberately omit a preset definition of serendipity to allow for the inclusion of micro-occurrences of what people themselves consider as meaningful coincidences in everyday life. We find that different people have different thresholds for what they consider serendipitous, revealing a serendipity continuum. We propose a distinction between background serendipity (or {\textquoteleft}traditional{\textquoteright} serendipity) and foreground serendipity (or {\textquoteleft}synchronicity{\textquoteright}, unexpectedly finding something meaningful related to foreground interests). Our study confirms the presence of three key serendipity elements of unexpectedness, insight and value (Makri & Blandford, 2012), and suggests a fourth element, preoccupation (foreground problem/interest), which covers synchronicity. Finally, we find that a combination of features based on word usage, POS categories, and hashtag usage show promise in automatically identifying tweets about serendipitous occurrences.",
keywords = "serendipity, information behaviour, everyday life, information sharing, social computing, social and community informatics, qualitative data analysis, quantitative data analysis, Twitter, online social networks",
author = "Toine Bogers and Lennart Bj{\"o}rneborn",
year = "2013",
month = jan,
day = "28",
doi = "10.9776/13175",
language = "English",
pages = "196--208",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the iConference 2013",
publisher = "iSchools",
note = "iConference 2013, iConf13 ; Conference date: 12-02-2013 Through 15-02-2013",

}

RIS

TY - GEN

T1 - Micro-serendipity: Meaningful Coincidences in Everyday Life Shared on Twitter

AU - Bogers, Toine

AU - Björneborn, Lennart

PY - 2013/1/28

Y1 - 2013/1/28

N2 - In this paper we present work on micro-serendipity: investigating everyday contexts, conditions, and attributes of serendipity as shared on Twitter. In contrast to related work, we deliberately omit a preset definition of serendipity to allow for the inclusion of micro-occurrences of what people themselves consider as meaningful coincidences in everyday life. We find that different people have different thresholds for what they consider serendipitous, revealing a serendipity continuum. We propose a distinction between background serendipity (or ‘traditional’ serendipity) and foreground serendipity (or ‘synchronicity’, unexpectedly finding something meaningful related to foreground interests). Our study confirms the presence of three key serendipity elements of unexpectedness, insight and value (Makri & Blandford, 2012), and suggests a fourth element, preoccupation (foreground problem/interest), which covers synchronicity. Finally, we find that a combination of features based on word usage, POS categories, and hashtag usage show promise in automatically identifying tweets about serendipitous occurrences.

AB - In this paper we present work on micro-serendipity: investigating everyday contexts, conditions, and attributes of serendipity as shared on Twitter. In contrast to related work, we deliberately omit a preset definition of serendipity to allow for the inclusion of micro-occurrences of what people themselves consider as meaningful coincidences in everyday life. We find that different people have different thresholds for what they consider serendipitous, revealing a serendipity continuum. We propose a distinction between background serendipity (or ‘traditional’ serendipity) and foreground serendipity (or ‘synchronicity’, unexpectedly finding something meaningful related to foreground interests). Our study confirms the presence of three key serendipity elements of unexpectedness, insight and value (Makri & Blandford, 2012), and suggests a fourth element, preoccupation (foreground problem/interest), which covers synchronicity. Finally, we find that a combination of features based on word usage, POS categories, and hashtag usage show promise in automatically identifying tweets about serendipitous occurrences.

KW - serendipity

KW - information behaviour

KW - everyday life

KW - information sharing

KW - social computing

KW - social and community informatics

KW - qualitative data analysis

KW - quantitative data analysis

KW - Twitter

KW - online social networks

U2 - 10.9776/13175

DO - 10.9776/13175

M3 - Article in proceedings

SP - 196

EP - 208

BT - Proceedings of the iConference 2013

PB - iSchools

CY - IDEALS

T2 - iConference 2013

Y2 - 12 February 2013 through 15 February 2013

ER -

ID: 47031016