Triadic embeddedness structure in family networks predicts mobile communication response to a sudden natural disaster.

ABSTRACT: Kinship networks are a fundamental social unit in human societies, and like social networks in general, provide social support in times of need. Here, we investigate the impact of sudden environmental shock, the M_s 7.0 2013 Ya'an earthquake, on the mobile communications patterns of local families, which we operationalize using anonymized individual-level mobile telecommunications metadata from family plan subscribers of a major carrier (N = 35,565 people). We demonstrate that families' communications dynamics after the earthquake depended on their triadic embeddedness structure, a structural metric we propose that reflects the number of dyads in a family triad that share social ties. We find that individuals in more embedded family structures were more likely to first call other

SUBMITTER: Jia JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8277904 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature