|Talks|

Online Social Integration is Associated with Reduced Mortality Risk

Visiting speaker
Past Talk
Will Hobbs
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Lazer Lab
Feb 1, 2017
2:00 pm
Feb 1, 2017
2:00 pm
In-person
4 Thomas More St
London E1W 1YW, UK
The Roux Institute
Room
100 Fore Street
Portland, ME 04101
Network Science Institute
2nd floor
Network Science Institute
11th floor
177 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115
Network Science Institute
2nd floor
Room
58 St Katharine's Way
London E1W 1LP, UK

Talk recording

People who have stronger social networks live longer. However, can we say the same about online social networks? Here, we conduct such a study. Using public California vital records, we compare 12 million Facebook users to nonusers. More importantly, we also look within Facebook users to explore how online social interactions—reflecting both online and offline social activity—are associated with longevity. We find that Facebook users who accept more friendships have a lower risk of mortality, but there is no relationship for those who initiate more friendships. Mortality risk is lowest for those with high levels of offline social interaction and moderate levels of online social interaction.

About the speaker
Will is a new postdoc in David Lazer's lab. He studies social networks, health, and politics. He received his PhD in 2016 from UC-San Diego's Department of Political Science and has previously been a visiting researcher at the Yale Institute for Network Science and a research intern with the Facebook Data Science team.
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Feb 01, 2017