Augmenting diversity in social ties: analysis and support of socializing behavior in social events

Abstract

Socializing is one of the most fundamental human activities. Social network diversity has many benefits well-documented in the social science literature. However, day-to-day, we mostly socialize with the same social ties in our social circles, ties that tend to be homophilic, i.e. sharing a similar demographic such as cultural background, job or educational level. One effective way to socialize beyond daily life social ties may be to take advantage of special opportunities at social events such as academic conferences, social activity clubs, or workshop events Networking parties are exemplary events where guest have the opportunity to socialize beyond these daily life social circles: guests go to catch up not only with friends, but also to meet new acquaintances by mingling in small, dynamically evolving conversation groups. As such, parties are good opportunities for making weak social ties with diverse acquaintances outside our normal social circles. Until now, however, most of the social computing literature has focused on online social network analysis or daily life interaction within social networks. Even in the social science literature, little research has been done investigating social events themselves. With the emergence of pervasive technology, we now have the opportunity to be able to discover the face-to-face socializing behavior at social events. We can discover needs of individual guests and support them in their socializing behavior and goals. In this thesis, we focus particularly on the diversity of guests’ socializing interactions. We 1) investigate the socializing behavior of guests and 2) design and deploy an assistive application to assist guests in their socializing. First, we found that guests spend much of their time in groups with their friends or with homophilic others rather unknown and diverse guests. However, existing friendship ties also exert a double-edged influence on socializing tendencies, in some conditions augmenting dive...