Depressive symptoms are associated with social isolation in face-to-face interaction networks

Abstract

Depressive symptoms are associated with social isolation in face-to-face interaction networks timon elmer * & christoph Stadtfeld individuals with depressive symptoms are more likely to be isolated in their social networks, which can further increase their symptoms. Although social interactions are an important aspect of individuals' social lives, little is known about how depressive symptoms affect behavioral patterns in social interaction networks. This article analyzes the effect of depressive symptoms on social interactions in two empirical settings (n total = 123, N dyadic relations = 2,454) of students spending a weekend together in a remote camp house. We measured social interactions between participants with Radio frequency Identification (RFID) nametags. Prior to the weekend, participants were surveyed on their depressive symptoms and friendship ties. Using state-of-the-art social network analysis methods, we test four preregistered hypotheses. Our results indicate that depressive symptoms are associated with (1) spending less time in social interaction, (2) spending time with similarly depressed others, (3) spending time in pair-wise interactions rather than group interactions but not with (4) spending relatively less time with friends. By "zooming in" on face-to-face social interaction networks, these findings offer new insights into the social consequences of depressive symptoms. Social interactions are the smallest building blocks of interpersonal social networks and are a prerequisite of the formation of functional social relationships. The lack of social interactions and social relationships (i.e., social isolation) can have detrimental effects on an individual's physical and psychological health. Social isolation increases the risk for coronary heart disease, stroke, and mortality 1-3 and can negatively influence psychological health leading to depressive symptoms 4,5. But social isolation can also be the consequence of depressive symptoms. It is well established that individuals with depressive symptoms have less rewarding and more dysfunctional social relationships 6-8. In that vein, longitudinal social network studies have shown that depressive symptoms affect the creation, maintenance, and termination of social ties 9,10. While the effects of depressive symptoms have mostly been examined in self-reported friendship networks, many processes are in fact argued to operate on the more fine-grained level of social interactions 9,11-14. Investigating the social processes on an interaction level can help us to understand how depressive symptoms contribute to being socially isolated. This paper thus develops and tests four preregistered hypotheses on how depressive symptoms affect face-to-face interactions in social networks. The first hypothesis (depression-isolation hypothesis) states that depressive symptoms are associated with less social interactions. It has been argued that depressive symptoms are accompanied by a change of social skills and motivation to socialize (e.g., more reassurance seekin...

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