Examining the Effects of Digital Social Networks on New Physical Human Interactions and Social Networks: A Validation of Dunbar’s Numbers

Fergus J D Keatinge

doi:10.4236/sn.2015.43009

Abstract

The digital social network of a user, who had undergone two radical locational changes, was analyzed to assess if digital social networks were influencing the ability of the user to create new physical social bonds in regards to proximal distance of existing social interactions and if new physical social networks conformed to Dunbar’s theorem of the social network size limit. The social network data (users equating to nodes and physical friendships to links) was implemented into the network analysis software “Gephi”. Standard network measures were assessed on the three digital sub-networks with the user removed from the calculations. Two separation algorithms were assessed on the network data, the Force Atlas algorithm and the Fruchterman Reingold algorithm. The results contradicted with existing research indicating that existing digital social networks did not have an effect on the creation of new social bonds after a radical locational change. The creation of new physical social networks conformed in part to Dunbar’s network size limit theorem and existing social links did not affect the user’s ability to create new social partnerships.

Highlights

“Facebook” is a digital social networking service created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg [1]
The ability to communicate with a member of your designated friendship group both personal conversations and broadcast messages, means friendships are unconstrained by physical distances. With these factors in mind, there arises the issue of dependence on digital social networks, and how these dependences are affecting physical social networks, i.e. the want/need/ ability for forming new social network connections in the real world
While studies have been undertaken to examine the implications of digital social networks of physical human social networks, such as the research of Goncalves et al [6], little research has been placed into these implications using geospatial distance as a defining feature

Summary

Introduction

“Facebook” is a digital social networking service created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg [1]. The ability to communicate with a member of your designated friendship group both personal conversations (private messages) and broadcast messages (status updates, picture sharing etc.), means friendships are unconstrained by physical distances (as the network is digital). According to software engineering company [9], social network analysis has vastly improved customer targeting, brand awareness, the detection of health care fraud and many others Improvements in these areas helps develop the free market to which global economies are based. Taking these factors into consideration, the research question/study objective of this investigation is: What effects are digital social networks having on new physical human interactions/bonds in regards to the proximal distance of existing social interactions? Taking these factors into consideration, the research question/study objective of this investigation is: What effects are digital social networks having on new physical human interactions/bonds in regards to the proximal distance of existing social interactions? Do these results confirm to the network limit size theorem proposed by Dunbar [4] [5]

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion