Towards a new social laboratory: An experimental study of search through community participation at Burning Man

TL;DR

This study explores social search efficiency at Burning Man through an experimental approach using location-tracking vessels, revealing insights into community participation and attrition in social network traversal.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental methodology for social search in unique community settings, emphasizing cultural practices to reduce attrition.

Findings

Two vessels successfully found their targets after a month.

Community participation may improve social search success rates.

Designing culturally aware experiments can mitigate attrition.

Abstract

The "small world phenomenon," popularized by Stanley Milgram, suggests that individuals from across a social network are connected via a short path of mutual friends and can leverage their local social information to efficiently traverse that network. Existing social search experiments are plagued by high rates of attrition, which prohibit comprehensive study of social search. We investigate this by conducting a small world experiment at Burning Man, an event located in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, USA, known its unique social systems and community participation. We design location-tracking vessels that we routed through Burning Man towards the goal of finding a particular person. Along the way, the vessels logged individual information and GPS data. Two of fifteen vessels made it to their designated people, but a month after Burning Man. Our results suggest possible improvements to limit rates of attrition through community participation and a design methodology that emphasizes cultural practices to aid social experimentation.