Sensing Sociability: Individual Differences in Young Adults' Conversation, Calling, Texting, and App Use Behaviors in Daily Life

Abstract

Sociability as a disposition describes a tendency to affiliate with others (vs. be alone). Yet, we know relatively little about how much social behavior people engage in during a typical day. One challenge to documenting social behavior tendencies is the broad number of channels over which socializing can occur, both in-person and through digital media. To examine individual differences in everyday social behavior patterns, here we used smartphone-based mobile sensing methods (MSMs) in four studies (total N = 926) to collect real-world data about young adults' social behaviors across four communication channels: conversations, phone calls, text messages, and use of messaging and social media..