Social networks link behavioral and social activities with a myriad of infrastructural networks that support relationships between individuals. These infrastructural networks include the Internet, telephone systems and transportation networks, all of which are in turn tied to power and fuel-supply networks, such as electricity grids. Social networks play a powerful shaping role on underlying infrastructural networks, placing great demands on their capacity and helping determine how they evolve through use.
An initial set of analyses suggests that there are significant opportunities for improving energy use by analyzing and optimizing the energy required to build and sustain social networks. This project seeks to quantify the energy requirements of social networks and identify strategies for optimizing their energy use by: assessing the ecology of technologies used in social networks through surveys and crowdsourced data; modeling and empirically measuring the power consumed in communication technologies; and developing a social sustainability composite indicator that will be integrated into a tool to help users make more sustainable choices.
Intellectual Merit This project will lead to an improved understanding of the behavior and dynamics of complex, socio-technical networks so that future networks can be better designed. The project seeks to build an understanding of how different communication technologies are used together in social networks and to use this model to address how energy use accumulates in technical networks that support relationships. Finally, the project seeks to link large-scale problems with the actions and behaviors of individuals, which is critical for promoting behavioral change.
Broader Impacts The questions answered in this project are critical to informed optimization and innovation of energy use in the context of social networks and social life. A better understanding of the energy cost of social networks and social computing technologies promises to have impact in climate change, information technology for development and operational efficiency. Additionally, the project?s findings will be distributed through a number of national programs for training and curriculum development.
This project sought to characterize the energy cost when individuals form and maintain social networks. Specifically, choices about communication modality can result in dramatically different levels of energy consumption. For example, contrast flying in a plane to visit grandma -- versus chatting with grandma via video conference. We used two approaches in understanding the energy impact of social network formation and maintenance. First, we conducted a two-wave panel study (February 2013; June 2014) that asked a random sample of 800 Americans to describe relationships of varying closeness and the transportation, communication, and computer networks they used to maintain these relationships. Second, we developed a mobile app to gain a fine-grained appreciation of individual behavior related to relationship formation and maintenance and the energy consequences of these behaviors. The mobile app, called GreenSC, was deployed in a successful field trial that generated thousands of observations per user over a period of two weeks. Visualizations from these data represent the first depictions of direct and imputed energy consumption -- related to social network maintenance -- using a smartphone as a sensor. The panel data allowed us to place the app-generated data in context through extrapolation based on the survey responses (i.e., representing typical behavior from a scientifically selected sample). The GreenSC code (for both app and server) is released under the GPLv3 license and is available for use and modification by the general public. We hope that other researchers and entrepreneurs build on this foundation to develop applications and services that make visible aggregate behavior (e.g., energy consumption) which is a precursor to changing behavior (e.g., energy conservation).
