Language, demographics, emotions, and the structure of online social networks

Kristina Lerman,David Garcia,Emilio Ferrara,Luciano G Marin,Lucas H Costa De Lima,Megha Arora

doi:10.1007/s42001-017-0001-x

Abstract

Social networks affect individuals’ economic opportunities and well-being. However, few of the factors thought to shape networks—culture, language, education, and income—were empirically validated at scale. To fill this gap, we collected a large number of social media posts from a major US metropolitan area. By associating these posts with US Census tracts through their locations, we linked socioeconomic indicators to group-level signals extracted from social media, including emotions, language, and online social ties. Our analysis shows that tracts with higher education levels have weaker social ties, but this effect is attenuated for tracts with high ratio of Hispanic residents. Negative emotions are associated with more frequent online interactions, or stronger social ties, while positive emotions are associated with weaker ties. These results hold for both Spanish and English tweets, evidencing that language does not affect this relationship between emotion and social ties. Our findings highlight the role of cognitive and demographic factors in online interactions and demonstrate the value of traditional social science sources, like US Census data, within social media studies.

Highlights

Humans have evolved large brains, in part to handle the complex cognitive demands of social interactions [1]
We observe systematic differences between emotions expressed in the tweets posted from different places, the language of the tweets, and the structure of online social interactions, as well as spatial mobility
Sentiment analysis of tweets in English and Spanish languages originating from a tract revealed a link between emotional expression and tie strength of Twitter users at the group level

Summary

Introduction

Humans have evolved large brains, in part to handle the complex cognitive demands of social interactions [1]. Scholars distinguish between two types of social relationships: those representing strong and weak ties. Strong ties are characterized by high frequency of interaction and emotional intimacy that can be found in relationships between family members or close friends. People connected by strong ties share mutual friends [2], forming cohesive social bonds that are essential for providing emotional and material support [3, 4] and creating resilient communities [5]. Weak ties represent more casual social relationships, characterized by less frequent, less intense interactions, such as those occurring between acquaintances. Online social relationships provide similar benefits to those of the offline relationships, including emotional support and exposure to novel and diverse information [9,10,11,12]

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Conclusion