The stability of transient relationships

Abstract

In contrast to long-term relationships, far less is known about the temporal evolution of transient relationships, although these constitute a substantial fraction of people’s communication networks. Previous literature suggests that ratings of relationship emotional intensity decay gradually until the relationship ends. Using mobile phone data from three countries (US, UK, and Italy), we demonstrate that the volume of communication between ego and its transient alters does not display such a systematic decay, instead showing a lack of any dominant trends. This means that the communication volume of egos to groups of similar transient alters is stable. We show that alters with longer lifetimes in ego’s network receive more calls, with the lifetime of the relationship being predictable from call volume within the first few weeks of first contact. This is observed across all three countries, which include samples of egos at different life stages. The relation between early call volume and lifetime is consistent with the suggestion that individuals initially engage with a new alter so as to evaluate their potential as a tie in terms of homophily.

The rhythms of transient relationships: allocating time between weekdays and weekends

“…Although much of the literature in this field focuses on long-lasting and subjectively important relationships (such as family or very long-term friends) [6][7][8], in reality a considerable portion of people's communication is dedicated to relatively short-term contacts (lasting in the order of a few months, perhaps a year). To begin to unravel this overlooked portion of people's communication, recent research has defined and described transient social relationships [9]: they are short-lived ties with an identifiable beginning and where communication gets suspended for a considerable period of time that suggests the end of the most active part of relationship. Even though they have an ephemeral nature, they account for a significant proportion of communication activity: even if these relationships remain active for five or six months, they receive roughly between 1 and 3 phone calls every 15 days, which signals their importance [9].…”

“…To begin to unravel this overlooked portion of people’s communication, recent research has defined and described transient social relationships [ 9 ]: they are short-lived ties with an identifiable beginning and where communication gets suspended for a considerable period of time that suggests the end of the most active part of relationship. Even though they have an ephemeral nature, they account for a significant proportion of communication activity: even if these relationships remain active for five or six months, they receive roughly between 1 and 3 phone calls every 15 days, which signals their importance [ 9 ]. Among the outstanding questions to be tackled, it is still unclear what contributes to transient relationships emergence and what factors affect their duration.…”

“…Among the outstanding questions to be tackled, it is still unclear what contributes to transient relationships emergence and what factors affect their duration. Crucially, in light of the large percentages of communication that transient relationships receive (ranging between 17% and 45% depending on the cohort [ 9 ]), the dynamics of ego networks cannot be understood without taking them into account.…”

“…Of the few things known, previous research identifies a positive relationship between the amount of time a transient tie remains active (lifetime) and call volume [ 9 , 10 ]. However, it is also known that time is an inelastic resource [ 11 ], and therefore people need to make multiple decisions that enable meaningful social relationships to be maintained, so their ‘need to belong’ (to have satisfying and meaningful connections with others) is met [ 12 ], and less attention is given to those relationships perceived as less important.…”

“…Data accessibility. Data files and code to produce the analysis reported in this manuscript can be found in Hidd [9], The Rhythms of Transient Relationships: Allocating Time between Weekdays and Weekends, Dryad Digital Repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.w6m905qv9 [37].…”