The dynamics of U.S. college network formation on Facebook
Jan Overgoor, Bogdan State, Lada Adamic

TL;DR
This study analyzes how U.S. college students form social networks on Facebook over time, highlighting the impact of entry, housing, and major on tie formation and persistence across diverse educational settings.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive, data-driven analysis of college network dynamics, revealing how timing, context, and institutional factors influence social tie formation and longevity.
Findings
Burst of friending activity at college entry
Homophily varies with housing and major
Institutional context affects tie persistence
Abstract
In the U.S., a significant portion of many people's life-long social networks is formed in college. Yet our understanding of many aspects of this formation process, such as the role of time variation, heterogeneity between educational contexts, and the persistence of ties formed during college, is incomplete. In order to help fill some of these gaps, we use a population-level dataset of the social networks of 1,181 U.S. institutions of higher education, ranging from 2008 to 2019, to provide a detailed view of how the structure of college networks changes over time. The most prominent feature in the evolution of these networks is the burst in friending activity when students first enter college. Ties formed during this period play a strong role in shaping the structure of the networks overall and the students' position within them. Subsequent starts and breaks from instruction further…
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Taxonomy
TopicsImpact of Technology on Adolescents · Complex Network Analysis Techniques · Social Capital and Networks
