Physical Proximity and Online User Behaviour in an Indoor Mobile Social Networking Application

This paper studies the encounter patterns and online connections of 76 users in an indoor location sharing and online interaction social network application, to seek underlying relationship between users' offline behaviors and online social behaviors. We create an indoor location and proximity-based mobile social network system called Find & Connect that collects and records current indoor location of users and then enables users to generate and maintain their online social relationships. We obtain quantitative data which presents properties of users' online behaviors and offline behaviors, and then perform a user study to verify the utility of Find & Connect applied in large meeting events. Using quantified parameters, particularly, encounters regarded as representation of offline behaviors, and exchange contacts and follow as main kinds of online behaviors, our study shows a positive effect by offline behaviors on online social behavior, while a negative effect by online social connection establishing on afterwards offline social interaction. We also find that according to different kinds of online behaviors, their correlation with offline interaction resembles but has diversity in intensity.