In A Society of Strangers, Kin Is Still Key: Identified Family Relations In Large-Scale Mobile Phone Data

TL;DR

This study uses large-scale mobile phone data with surname information to analyze communication patterns, revealing that kinship influences call frequency and duration, even amid demographic changes like urbanization and migration.

Contribution

It introduces a method to identify kin relationships in mobile data using surnames, and demonstrates how family ties affect communication patterns across life stages.

Findings

Family calls are more frequent and longer than non-kin calls.

Call patterns vary more across life stages for family than non-family.

Surname-based identification helps distinguish kin relationships in mobile data.

Abstract

Mobile call networks have been widely used to investigate communication patterns and the network of interactions of humans at the societal scale. Yet, more detailed analysis is often hindered by having no information about the nature of the relationships, even if some metadata about the individuals are available. Using a unique, large mobile phone database with information about individual surnames in a population in which people inherit two surnames: one from their father, and one from their mother, we are able to differentiate among close kin relationship types. Here we focus on the difference between the most frequently called alters depending on whether they are family relationships or not. We find support in the data for two hypotheses: (1) phone calls between family members are more frequent and last longer than phone calls between non-kin, and (2) the phone call pattern between family members show a higher variation depending on the stage of life-course compared to non-family members. We give an interpretation of these findings within the framework of evolutionary anthropology: kinship matters even when demographic processes, such as low fertility, urbanisation and migration reduce the access to family members. Furthermore, our results provide tools for distinguishing between different kinds of kin relationships from mobile call data, when information about names are unavailable.