Measuring and Modeling Bursty Human Phenomena

Karsai, Márton and Jo, Hang-Hyun (2025) Measuring and Modeling Bursty Human Phenomena. In: Handbook of Computational Social Science. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Cheltenham, pp. 652-662. ISBN 9781802207293; 9781802207309

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Abstract

Bursty dynamics characterizes systems that evolve through short active periods of several events, which are separated by long periods of inactivity. Systems with such temporal heterogeneities are not only found in nature but also include examples from most aspects of human dynamics. In this Chapter, we briefly introduce such bursty phenomena by first walking through the most prominent observations of bursty human behavior. We then introduce several conventional measures that have been developed for characterizing bursty phenomena. Finally, we discuss the fundamental modeling directions proposed to understand the emergence of burstiness in human dynamics through the assumption of task prioritization, temporal correlations, and external factors. This Chapter is only a concise introduction to the field. Still, it provides the most important references, which will help interested readers to learn in depth the ever-growing research area of bursty human dynamics.

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