The Role of Physical Location in Our Online Social Networks

Abstract

One of the most important properties of social networking sites is its reachability – no physical location constraint. In addition, all social networking sites allow us to search people with common interests, so we can find friends anywhere in the world easier than ever. With the help of social media, it seems that expaning our social networks is physical location independent. Motivated by the above observations, we study the role of physical location in social media. If physical location is no longer a barrier and physical interaction can be ignored, then our online social networks should have the following characteristics: (1) A number of our friends are from different places in the world other than the places that we have been; (2) A number of our friends are not from our physical social circles – they are not our colleagues, not our high school friends, etc.