When Videos Spread Like Viruses
The Science Behind Going Viral: Scientists have discovered that viral videos spread through social networks following the same mathematical patterns as infectious diseases move through populations. This connection is not just a clever metaphor. Researchers use actual epidemiological models originally designed to track illnesses like the flu to understand how content spreads online. The similarity between disease transmission and video sharing is so strong that mathematical equations developed to predict epidemics can accurately forecast which videos will become popular and how quickly they will spread across the internet.