Distance Is Not Dead: Social Interaction and Geographical Distance in the Internet Era
arXiv (Cornell University)Published 17 June 2009Open access
Jacob Goldenberg, Moshe Levy
Citations110
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TL;DR
It is shown that the volume of electronic communications is inversely proportional to geographic distance, following a Power Law, and the importance of physical proximity in social interactions has dramatically increased with the internet revolution.
Abstract
The Internet revolution has made long-distance communication dramatically faster, easier, and cheaper than ever before. This, it has been argued, has decreased the importance of geographic proximity in social interactions, transforming our world into a global village with a borderless society. We argue for the opposite: while technology has undoubtedly increased the overall level of communication, this increase has been most pronounced for local social ties. We show that the volume of electronic communications is inversely proportional to geographic distance, following a Power Law. We directly study the importance of physical proximity in social interactions by analyzing the spatial dissemination of new baby names. Counter-intuitively, and in line with the above argument, the importance of geographic proximity has dramatically increased with the internet revolution.
Keywords
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