The Wireless Good Samaritan: Pro-social Behavior in Mobile Networks

A growing body of research on individual and group behavior in digital social networks (Borgatti et al. 2009; Eagle, Pentland, and Lazer 2009; Kossinets and Watts 2006; Lazer et al. 2009; Onnela et al. 2007) suggests that network and telecommunications patterns can predict social relationships and other behavioral constructs (Eagle et al. 2009; Onnela et al. 2007). Population-scale telecommunications databases of prior behavioral histories thus open new avenues for investigating pro-sociality, especially given how the ubiquity of mobile telecommunications in modern life has irrevocably altered the basic parameters of social interactions. In a world where most human beings are constantly interconnected through wireless networks, mobile telecommunications (e.g. voice call, text message, internet) have not only expanded the boundaries of traditional social interactions, but have also began to substitute for face-to-face interactions (Eagle et al. 2009; Onnela et al. 2007). How pro-social behaviors function within humanity’s unprecedented state of networked interconnectivity remains an open question, especially given the known basis of pro-sociality in face-to-face environments.