Social contagions on multiplex networks with different reliability

Multiplex networks can be used to describe social communication platforms, which always have distinct reliability for a social contagion. However, the effects of different reliability from different social communication platforms are always neglected. This work studies a generalized non-Markovian social contagion model on multiplex networks by considering each layer has different reliability. Through performing extensive numerical simulations on both ER-ER and SF-SF multiplex networks, we find that increasing the reliability of one layer promotes the contagion, but does not affect the growth pattern of the final adoption size versus the contagion information transmission probability. To describe this proposed non-Markovian model, we develop an edge-based compartmental theory, and find that the theoretical predictions agree well with numerical simulations. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.