Digital communication over mobile phones and social media play a key role in maintaining social relationships over time and space. We use the digital trace from this communication to study the different types of social relationships people have and how these change over time. We have used data from mobile phones and social media to demonstrate that:
- People have a persistent 'social signature' that describes how they distribute communication across their social network. This remains stable even as the network members change
- People have a distinct daily and weekly rhythm to mobile phone communication, with calls in the evening and at the weekend directed to stronger social ties.
- In short-lived 'transient' social relationships, call volume in the second month of the relationship predicts how long the relationship will remain active for.
- Of this six HEXACO personality factors, only Extraversion was associated with objectively measured Facebook networks, with extraverts having more Facebook Friends.