Bridging Online and Offline Social Networks: Multiplex Analysis

TL;DR

This paper introduces a unified framework to analyze actor characteristics in multiplex social networks, revealing differences between online and offline communication patterns, especially regarding tie strength and reciprocity.

Contribution

It extends traditional social network metrics to multiplex networks and compares online and offline friendship data, highlighting differences in tie strength and reciprocity.

Findings

Offline networks have balanced strong and weak ties.

Online networks are dominated by weak ties.

Reciprocity is preserved across layers, but triads are not significant.

Abstract

We show that three basic actor characteristics, namely normalized reciprocity, three cycles, and triplets, can be expressed using an unified framework that is based on computing the similarity index between two sets associated with the actor: the set of her/his friends and the set of those considering her/him as a friend. These metrics are extended to multiplex networks and then computed for two friendship networks generated by collecting data from two groups of undergraduate students. We found that in offline communication strong and weak ties are (almost) equally presented, while in online communication weak ties are dominant. Moreover, weak ties are much less reciprocal than strong ties. However, across different layers of the multiplex network reciprocities are preserved, while triads (measured with normalized three cycles and triplets) are not significant.