Unpacking the exploration-exploitation tradeoff on Snapchat: The relationships between users' exploration-exploitation interests and server log data

Diego Gómez-Zará, Yozen Liu, Leonardo Neves, Neil Shah, Maarten W. Bos

Abstract: Highlights•Snapchat users’ behavioral signals were mainly associated with exploration interests rather than exploitation interests.•Exploration was positively associated with spending more time and having more impressions on Snapchat.•Exploration was negatively associated with communication features, such as chat messages and Direct Snaps.•Unlike previous conceptualizations, exploration was linked with content from familiar sources rather than novel sources.•Users’ relationships characterized exploration and exploitation, driven by friends’ and favorite channels’ content.