Navigating Networks with Limited Information

TL;DR

This paper investigates how real-world networks are structured to favor short-distance communication over long-distance, especially under limited information, revealing modular designs and minimal informational requirements for navigation.

Contribution

It uncovers the structural features of networks that facilitate navigation with limited information, highlighting the robustness of short-distance communication and minimal node-level information needed.

Findings

Networks favor short-distance communication at the expense of long-distance connectivity.

Directed navigation requires minimal information at the node level.

Modular network structures are common in city and Internet networks.

Abstract

We study navigation with limited information in networks and demonstrate that many real-world networks have a structure which can be described as favoring communication at short distance at the cost of constraining communication at long distance. This feature, which is robust and more evident with limited than with complete information, reflects both topological and possibly functional design characteristics. For example, the characteristics of the networks studied derived from a city and from the Internet are manifested through modular network designs. We also observe that directed navigation in typical networks requires remarkably little information on the level of individual nodes. By studying navigation, or specific signaling, we take a complementary approach to the common studies of information transfer devoted to broadcasting of information in studies of virus spreading and the like.