Measuring social relations with multiple datasets

Abstract

Because people have different levels of engagement with each other,measuring social relations is difficult. In this work, we propose a methodof measuring social relations with multiple datasets and demonstrate thedifferences with empirical evidence. Our empirical findings demonstrate thatpeople use different communication media channels differently. Therefore, wesuggest that in order to understand social structures, one should use severalkinds of data sources and not just depend on a single dataset. Our datasetsinclude mobile phone data gathered with handset-based measurements and datafrom OtaSizzle online social media services. By means of social networkanalysis, we show that the online social media services have a differentfriendship network than the networks based on mobile phone communication.The mobile phone communication networks, however, have a very similarstructure. These results are encouraging as previous research also indicatesdifferences in the communication networks.