The ecology of social interactions in online and offline environments

📝 Abstract

The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study the ecology of online and offline interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can adopt different strategies of socialization. Our main result is that the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with hostile social environments can lead the economy to non-socially optimal stationary states.

💡 Analysis

The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study the ecology of online and offline interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can adopt different strategies of socialization. Our main result is that the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with hostile social environments can lead the economy to non-socially optimal stationary states.

📄 Content

The ecology of social interactions in online and offline environments

Angelo Antoci 1 Alexia Delfino 2 Fabio Paglieri 3 Fabio Sabatini 4

Abstract

The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study the ecology of online and offline interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can adopt different strategies of socialization. Our main result is that the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with hostile social environments can lead the economy to non-socially optimal stationary states.

JEL Codes: C61, C73, D85, O33, Z13. PsycINFO Codes: 2240, 2750.
Keywords: Evolutionary dynamics; self-protective behavior; social networks; dynamics of social interaction; social networking sites; Internet; well-being.

1 Department of Economics and Business, University of Sassari, Italy. Email: antoci@uniss.it. The research of Angelo Antoci has been financed by Regione Autonoma della Sardegna (L. R. n. 7, 2007; research project Capitale sociale e divari economici regionali). 2 Department of Economics, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Email: A.Delfino2@lse.ac.uk. 3 National Research Council, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italy. Email: fabio.paglieri@istc.cnr.it. 4 Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy Email: fabio.sabatini@uniroma1.it.

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1. Introduction The advent of social networking sites (SNS)5has caused a striking transformation in the way people interact with each other and with the surrounding social, political, and institutional environment. Online networks such as Facebook allow users to preserve and develop their social relations despite time and distance constraints (Ellison et al., 2007). SNS also provide users with strategies to cope with conditions of social decay: when the offline environment is lacking in social participation opportunities, individuals can turn to the online world or establish new contacts and create new chances of offline interaction (Steinfield et al., 2008). Situations of decay, however, can affect even online networks. Descriptive statistics from the Pew Research Center (PRC) illustrate that “online incivility”, an important yet still under- investigated phenomenon - including aggressive and disrespectful behaviors, vile comments, harassment, and hate speech - is spreading across SNS and makes online social environments potentially hostile for users (Rainie et al., 2012; Duggan, 2014). Recent studies suggest that exposure to online incivility may be detrimental to SNS users’ trust and well-being (Sarracino et al., 2015a; Sabatini et al., 2015).
   Despite the extent of the transformations brought about by online networking, existing research on the relationships between online and offline interactions is limited. We still lack models to analyse the evolution of the different strategies of social engagement in potentially hostile environments and how it impacts collective well-being. This issue has important societal and economic implications, as social interaction influences the formation of opinions, political participation, collective action, and consumption patterns. We study the ecology of online and offline social interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can choose whether to be polite or not when meeting others in online environments. Everyone also has the option to isolate themselves from any social interaction, as a self-protective behavior to cope with hostile social environments. An offline environment can be hostile in relation to the decline in the opportunities for social engagement, due for example to increasing busyness and to the lack of meeting places such as parks, theatres, and associations. People may react by reducing face-to-face interaction, in order to develop part of their social life online, or even to seek refuge in social isolation, as suggested in Putnam’s (2000) study on the decline of the American community. An online social environment, on the other hand, can become hostile with the spread of online incivility,

5 We use the terms social networking sites (SNS), online social networks and online networks as synonyms for the sake of brevity.

3 which makes Internet-mediated interaction less rewarding. Users may want to defend themselves from incivility in social networks by adopting an uncivil behavior in their turn, or by abandoning those networks. In this latter case, if face-to-face interactions are perceived as not rewarding enough, self-protective behaviors may lead to social isolation. We define four types of agents pursuing different social interaction st

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