2021/12/08 by Javier Ureña-Carrión, Javier Ureña-Carrion, Petri Leskinen +10
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Computational and Text Analysis Methods #Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Social and Information Networks (cs.SI) #cs.SI #physics.soc-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.04336
5 figures, presented in The 10th International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications
arxiv created 2021/12/08 · openalex publication_date 2021/12/08 · arxiv updated 2021/12/09 · openalex created_date 2021/12/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Huge advances in understanding patterns of human communication, and the underlying social networks where it takes place, have been made recently using massive automatically recorded data sets from digital communication, such as emails and phone calls. However, it is not clear to what extent these results on human behaviour are artefacts of contemporary communication technology and culture and if the fundamental patterns in communication have changed over history. This paper presents an analysis of historical epistolary metadata with the aim of comparing the underlying historical communication patterns with those of contemporary communication. Our work uses a new epistolary dataset containing metadata on over 150 000 letters sent between the 16th and 19th centuries. The analyses indicate striking resemblances between contemporary and epistolary communication network patterns, including dyadic interactions and ego-level behaviour. Despite these positive findings, certain aspects of the letter datasets are insufficient to corroborate other similarities or differences for these communication networks.