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The role of space, time and sociability in predicting social encounters

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph Stich

    (University of Birmingham, UK)

  • Emmanouil Tranos

    (University of Bristol, UK)

  • Mirco Musolesi

    (University College London, UK)

  • Sune Lehmann

Abstract

Space, time and the social realm are intrinsically linked. While an array of studies have tried to untangle these factors and their influence on human behaviour, hardly any have taken their effects into account at the same time. To disentangle these factors, we try to predict future encounters between students and assess how important social, spatial and temporal features are for prediction. We phrase our problem of predicting future encounters as a link-prediction problem and utilise set of Random Forest predictors for the prediction task. We use data collected by the Copenhagen network study; a study unique in scope and scale and tracks 847 students via mobile phones over the course of a whole academic year. We find that network and social features hold the highest discriminatory power for predicting future encounters.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph Stich & Emmanouil Tranos & Mirco Musolesi & Sune Lehmann, 2022. "The role of space, time and sociability in predicting social encounters," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 49(2), pages 619-636, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:49:y:2022:i:2:p:619-636
    DOI: 10.1177/23998083211016871
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Vedran Sekara & Sune Lehmann, 2014. "The Strength of Friendship Ties in Proximity Sensor Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-8, July.
    2. Lambiotte, Renaud & Blondel, Vincent D. & de Kerchove, Cristobald & Huens, Etienne & Prieur, Christophe & Smoreda, Zbigniew & Van Dooren, Paul, 2008. "Geographical dispersal of mobile communication networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(21), pages 5317-5325.
    3. Kowald, Matthias & van den Berg, Pauline & Frei, Andreas & Carrasco, Juan-Antonio & Arentze, Theo & Axhausen, Kay & Mok, Diana & Timmermans, Harry & Wellman, Barry, 2013. "Distance patterns of personal networks in four countries: a comparative study," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 236-248.
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