The age of friends in an online social network
Abstract
The paper presents the results of a descriptive study of the relationship between users’ age and the age of their friends in the online social network VKontakte. Based on a random sample of users with an open date of birth (N = 35,023), a sample of user-friend pairs (number of pairs N = 1,205,126) was obtained. The results show the existence of significant age-related homophilia, the degree of which, however, depends on the age of the users and the age at which they joined the social network. The results show that a tendency toward homophilia is most characteristic of young users. Even more significant for the degree of homophilia is the stage of the life cycle the user is at when joining the social network. The mean interquartile range of age of a user's friends is almost half that of those who join before the age of 19 (school and university years), compared with those who join after the age of 24.
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