But unlike businesses that use social networking as a marketing tool, individual senders are not looking for a definable economic reward.

They want status, or the satisfaction of being heard. Instead of actual sales, senders measure their payoff by the number of receivers who listen to them, while the effort required to reach them is the cost of sales, researchers said.

Social distance between senders and receivers largely determines the effort required to reach them. If a social network is small, and each sender targets just a few receivers, there’s not much competition for attention; receivers are not getting many messages.

On the other hand, senders aren’t getting a large payoff so they only make a minimal effort to be heard.

That changes when senders attempt to increase their payoff by targeting people who are more socially distant.

Receivers, who once were the recipient of messages from only a few senders, are now targeted by many senders, leading to increased competition for attention. And the more distant the receiver, the harder it is for the sender to craft relevant messages, the researchers said.

As competition grows, some senders decide the payoff is not worth the trouble and drop out, and others decide not to enter the market, which explains why the proportion of senders to receivers is so low, researchers said.

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