From Earth to Solaria
and Back
The evolution of social interactions in the Internet era
Fabio Sabatini
Sapienza University of Rome
Department of Economics and Law
Congresso Iberoamericano de Sistemas de Conhecimento
Vale dos Vinhedos - Bento Gonçalves, Brasil
October 27, 2011
Social Capital Gateway
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/
you can download my papers from:
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/editor
This presentation will be largely devoted to the role of the Internet
in the accumulation of social capital.
All references can be retrieved (and freely downloaded) at the url:
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/internet
Solaria
• Solaria is a fictional planet Isaac Asimov
described in the Foundation and Robot
series.
• It was the last of the fifty worlds to be
colonized by the so-called Spacers, a line
of space colonists.
• After centuries of sustained economic
growth boosted by an unbounded
technical progress, Solaria developed
the most eccentric culture of the colonies.
Solaria
• Originally, there were about 20,000 people
living alone in vast estates.
• Solarians’ lives were marked by technology:
citizens never had to meet, save for sexual
contact for reproductive purposes.
• All other contact was accomplished by
sophisticated holographic viewing systems, with
most Solarians exhibiting a strong phobia
towards actual contact, or even being in the
same room as another human.
• All work was done by robots: there were indeed
thousands of robots for every Solarian.
Solaria
• As centuries went by, economic growth and
technical progress made Solaria become even
more rigidly and obsessively isolationist. The planet
cut off all contact with the rest of the Galaxy
(although continuing to monitor hyperspatial
communications).
• Its inhabitants genetically altered themselves to be
hermaphroditic in order to avoid sexual contacts.
• At the final stage of Solarian civilization, the human
inhabitants disappeared, giving the impression that
they had died out (although they had in fact
withdrawn underground). Their estates continued
to be worked by millions of robots.
Growth, technology and
the risk of “dehumanization”
• Asimov draws on the Solaria metaphor to
warn against the risks of dehumanization
that may be caused by excessive growth
and technical progress.
• In the 1950s, Asimov’s novel well embodied
the common fear according to which
technology would have progressively
destroyed social interaction.
Today, October 27, 2011
• Today, our lives are marked by technology almost as
those of Solarians, and – despite the spreading of some
criticism - growth is still the policy makers’ pole star.
• The widespread diffusion of broadband, the internet
revolution, and the true explosion of online networks like
Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr create growing worries
about the risk of relational poverty.
• The folk wisdom pointing to technology as one of the
major responsible of the widespread social isolation of
our time has get stronger and stronger, walking at the
same pace of technological advance.
What is happening to social interactions?
•
•
According to the earlier sociological literature on the Internet, communication
technologies may lower the probability of having face-to-face contacts with family,
neighbours, or friends in one’s home.
Wellman et al. (2006) note that internet usage may even interfere with
communication in the home, creating a post-familial family where family members
spend time interacting with computers, rather than with each other.
The supposed decline in social capital
• Robert Putnam (1995; 2000) has
documented how most indicators of
social capital followed an inverted
U path in the United States during
the twentieth century.
• During the first two thirds of the
century “Americans took a more
and more active role in the social
and political life of their
communities”, and they behaved in
an increasingly trustworthy way
toward one another (2000, p. 183).
• Then, beginning in the 1960s and
1970s and accelerating in the
1980s and 1990s, an erosion of the
stock of American social capital
started.
The supposed decline in social capital
Putnam discusses 3
main explanations for
this inverted-U trend:
1) Pressure on time and money
2) Mobility and sprawl
These phenomena have been considered in the
economic literature as channels through which
economic growth can cause a reduction in
social connectedness.
3) Technology and mass media
Technology has made news and entertainment
increasingly individualized. “Electronic
technology allows us to consume hand-tailored
entertainment in private, even utterly alone …
the time allocation of Americans massively
shifted toward home-based activities (especially
watching TV) and away from socializing outside
the home” (2000, pp. 216-217 and 238).
The negative social externalities of growth
• It is possible to argue that the pressure on time exerted
by economic growth acts as a factor hampering the
consolidation of social ties, thereby leading to an erosion
of the stock of social capital.
• Routledge and von Amsberg (JME, 2003) show that the
technical change and innovation generally associated to
growth influence social capital by rising labour mobility:
higher levels of turnover may hamper the consolidation
of social ties, both inside and outside the workplace.
• Moreover, the uncertainty of future incomes related to
increased mobility affects any form of long-term planning
of life activities such as marriage and procreation.
The negative social externalities of growth
•
•
An early account of this process is given by Fred Hirsch (Social Limits
to Growth, 1976): “As the subjective cost of time rises, pressure for
specific balancing of personal advantage in social relationships will
increase ... Perception of the time spent in social relationships as a
cost is itself a product of privatized affluence.
The effect is to whittle down the amount of friendship and social contact
... The huge increase in personal mobility in modern economies adds
to the problem by making sociability more of a public and less of a
private good”.
The negative social externalities of technology
• Conventional wisdom suggests that growth’s
perverse effects on social cohesion are bound to
be exacerbated by technical progress (Solaria
syndrome).
• In an interview to the New York Times, Robert
Putnam stated that “The distinctive effect of
technology has been to enable us to get
entertainment and information while remaining
entirely alone.
• It’s fundamentally bad because the lack of social
contact means that we don’t share information
and values and outlook that we should”.
Why should economists care about social capital?
• One of the more intriguing theses standing from the debate is that
trust and social capital are key factors for making the economy work
in the right way.
• The economy’s ability of “reproducing” itself, thereby experiencing
sustainable growth, depends also on its ability to foster - or, at least,
to preserve - its endowments of social capital.
• A summary of the mechanism:
a) a social environment rich of participation opportunities is a fertile
ground for nurturing trust and shared values, where repeated
interactions foster the diffusion of information and raise reputation’s
relevance.
b) The higher opportunity cost of free-riding in prisoners’ dilemma kind
of situations makes the agents’ behaviour more foreseeable causing
an overall reduction of uncertainty.
c) Therefore, an increase in trust-based relations reduce monitoring
costs and, more in general, the average cost of transactions, specially
the highly trust-sensitive ones (e.g. those ones taking place in the
financial market).
d) In the long run, such a mechanism may boost growth and
development.
Why should economists care about social capital?
• The reverse effect that growth and development
exert on the accumulation of social capital is a
surprisingly (and guiltily) neglected topic in the
economic debate (…).
• It is logical to argue that the mechanism works along
two directions: not only social capital feeds growth
and development: growth and development create,
shape, destroy social capital as well. In other words,
the mechanism is circular.
• This presentation will try to provide some hints on
the conditions under which such a social capitalfed development can be sustainable in the long
run or, in other terms, when the social capital 
trust  development cycle may be able to self-feed.
Why should economists care about social capital?
• Sustainable development can be defined as a
process for improving the range of opportunities
that will enable individual human beings and
communities to achieve their aspirations and full
potential over a sustained period of time (i.e.
in the long run), while maintaining the resilience
of economic, social and environmental systems.
• We could adapt this definition of sustainable
development to our framework by stating that
development is sustainable as far as it does
not erode the stock of social capital of the
economy.
Bibliographical references on the relationship between social capital and economic
growth are available at the url http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/growth
A model: Antoci, Sabatini and Sodini (2011, JEBO)
• We assume that, in each instant of time t, the wellbeing of the individual depends on the consumption of
two goods: a private (or material) good, Ci(t), and a
socially provided (or relational) good, Bi(t).
• Even if private and relational goods satisfy different
needs, the private good can be consumed as a
substitute for the relational one.
• For example, when the social environment is poor,
people may be constrained to replace human
interactions, e.g. joining the meetings of a cultural
circle or playing football with friends, with private
consumption, e.g. staying at home and watching TV or
playing a virtual match against the computer.
Definition of relational goods
• Relational goods are a distinctive type of
good that can only be enjoyed if shared
with others. They are different from private
goods, which are enjoyed alone (Uhlaner
1989). Following Coleman (1988, 1990),
we assume that social participation (i.e.
the production/consumption of relational
goods) generates social capital as a byproduct.
Model: Private vs. relational goods
• We assume that Bi(t) is produced through the joint action
of the time devoted to social activities, the average
social participation, and the stock of social capital:
• The time agent i does not spend for social participation, is
used as an input in the production of the private good.
Moreover, we model the claims of the empirical literature
by assuming that SC plays a role in private production:
Model: Private vs. relational goods
• The instantaneous utility of the representative agent is
represented by the following CES function:
U (C, B)  [C

1
  
 (1   ) B ]
i.e. agents’ well-being depends on private and relational
goods.
• We assume that private goods can satisfy both
private and social needs. On the contrary, relational
goods cannot satisfy primary needs such as food,
security, clothing, and shelter.
Model: Private vs. relational goods
• As we state in the introduction, these goods serve different
needs. However, we introduce the possibility that private
goods substitute for relational ones in the satisfaction of social
needs, or, at least, for compensating the deprivation of human
interactions. For example, a material, highly technology
intensive, good like a playstation can (partially) console for the
unavailability of 21 friends to play football on a sport field.
• The extent to which such a substitution process can take
place is given by   11 measuring the (constant) elasticity
of substitution between B and C. We will address two cases:
• Low substitutability between B and C (θ > 0). In this
situation, material and relational goods are complements.
• High substitutability between material and relational goods
(θ > 0). We will refer to this case by saying that B and C are
substitutes.
Model: accumulation of social capital
• Following hints from rational choice sociology, we assume
that most of the times the creation of social ties does not
depend on rational investment decisions. Social capital is
accumulated as a by-product of social participation.
• Following hints from political science, we assume that the
production of private goods exerts a positive spillover on
social capital’s accumulation.
• Since human relations need care to be preserved, we
introduce a positive SC’s depreciation rate η to account for
their possible cooling over time:


K s  I ( s , K s )  K s  s K s  K s
Model: accumulation of social capital
• The resulting stock is a public resource, which enters
as an argument in every agent’s utility function due to its
ability to contribute to the production of both private and
relational goods.
Model: the agent’s problem
• Letting r be the discounting rate of future utility, the iagent’s maximization problem is:

max  U (C , B )e rt dt
s (t )
0
• Under the constraint:
Y (t )  1  s(t ) K s (t )
• Since agents are a continuum, i takes the average
values of s, B, and Y as given.
• Please refer to the paper if you want to learn more
about the exact functional forms.
Model: exogenous technological progress
• In this framework, we introduce an exogenous
technological progress.
• We assume that technological progress raises
productivity in the production of both private and
relational goods.
• The assumption is based on the observation that
technology can help the production of relational
goods in a variety of ways.
Y (t )  1  s (t ) K s (t )T  (t )

B(t )  s (t ) s
1 
(t ) K s (t )T  (t )
• where T represents technological progress, growing at
the exogenous rate μ.
Results
•
If the following assumptions
hold:
A) There is positive
substitutability between B
and C
B) and Ks gives a significant
contribution to the production
of private goods.
C) and technological progress
contributes to the production
of material goods more than
to the production of relational
goods:
• Then the stock of social
capital may exhibit a
growth followed by a
decline, so that its
relationship with
technological progress is
described by an inverted Ushaped curve.
Results
•
If there is no substitutability
between B and C
•
Or if:
A) Ks contributes to the
production of relational goods
more than to the production of
material goods
B) and technological progress
supports productivity more
in the production of
relational goods than in the
production of material
goods:
•
Then, the stock of social
capital can unboundedly grow.
Interpretation of results
• The role of technology in social interactions.
• When can technological progress support the production
of relational goods more than the production of material
goods?
• In our view, this is the case for online networking, i.e.
participation to social networking sites such as
Facebook and Twitter.
Interpretation of results
• In the rest of the presentation, we will show:
A) how, in a world characterized by a rising pressure on
time, the evolution of human interaction implies a
partial shift from face-to-face interactions to Internetmediated interactions.
B) Why we do not have to worry about this change.
An evolutionary model (Antoci et al. 2011c and 2011d)
• We model a society composed by a continuum of
identical individuals. In each instant of time they choose
how to allocate their leisure time, p, which is
exogenously given, between two kinds of social
interaction.
• We assume that, in each instant of time t:
1) A share x(t) of agents embrace a social networking
strategy SN, i.e. their social participation relies both on
online networks and face to face interaction.
2) The remaining share of the population 1 – x(t) adopts
a face-to-face strategy FF: they do not interact online
and thus develop all their relationships through face to
face encounters.
Payoffs
• The payoff of the FF strategydepends on x(t) and on the
share of time devoted to social interaction, p.
• The payoff of the SN strategy depends on the share of
the population adopting it, x(t), on the time agents devote
to social participation, p, and on the wealth of ties - or, in
other words, the stock of social capital - of online
networks at time t, : Kn(t)
The Internet social capital as a public good
• The stock Kn(t) is a public good, in that it potentially
benefits whoever is connected to the Web and adopts the
SN strategy.
• A peculiarity of Kn(t) is that it allows asynchronous
interactions which may help people to reconcile working
activities and pervasive busyness with the need to take
care of social relationships. When individuals cannot meet
in person due to time differences (think, for example, of
people working on a night shift, or of friends living in
different hemispheres), the Internet social capital offers the
possibility of a quality though deferred interaction.
• What happens here is NOT the replacement of actual
encounters with deferred, more impersonal and less deep,
contacts.
• Rather, in this case the Internet social capital offers
individuals the possibility to preserve relationships
which would otherwise be unravelled by busyness,
distance, and the pressure of time.
Payoffs: further assumptions
• We assume that the payoff of the FF strategy decreases
as the share of the population adopting the SN strategy
grows.
• The payoff of the SN strategy increases as Kn, i.e. the
stock of the internet’s social capital, grows.
In other words, the more our friends join Facebook, the
higher the utility of subscribing to the platform will be as
well. On the other hand, being outside of the network
(i.e. continuing to play the FF strategy) may imply an
increasing relational cost.
Payoffs: further assumptions (the role of p)
• The more the time p available for social participation
declines, the more the SN strategy becomes
comparatively more profitable.
• By contrast, a growth in the time p for leisure makes the
FF strategy comparatively more profitable.
• If agents are forced to be deeply immersed in their
professional activities, the possibility to take care of
human relationships in spare moments (e.g., while on
the train, or at home before going to sleep) becomes a
precious means for the preservation of social life.
• SN can thus be interpreted also as a “defensive”
strategy that individuals adopt to protect their social
life from growing pressure on time.
Payoffs: further assumptions (the role of p)
• Please refer to the full papers for the
development of the theoretical framework:
- Antoci, A., Sabatini, F., Sodini, M. (2011b). See
You on Facebook! A framework for analyzing
the role of computer-mediated interaction in
the evolution of social capital. Submitted.
- Antoci, A., Sabatini, F., Sodini, M. (2011c).
Bowling alone but tweeting together: the
evolution of human interaction in the social
networking Era. Submitted.
Results of the analysis of the model
• We show that two “extreme” stationary
states are “attractive”:
1) (Kn, x) = (0, 0) all agents adopt the FF
strategy
2) (Kn, x) = [(pβ / γ), 1]: the stock of the
Internet social capital reaches its highest
possible level and all agents embrace the
social networking strategy.
Results of the analysis of the model
• In the two cited papers we
show that the basins of
attraction of the stationary
state where all agents chose
the SN strategy (and the
stock Kn representing the
wealth of knowledge and ties
of the Internet reaches its
highest level) expands as the
time p available for social
participation decreases.
• Internet-mediated
interaction can be seen as
a tool allowing individuals
to manage their social
relationships despite
increasing time pressures
and possible distance
constraints.
The yellow line moves towards the leftbottom part of the plane as p
decreases
Empirical evidence
• Early sociological studies on computer-mediated
communication shared the fear that the Internet would
cause a progressive reduction in social interactions, just as
the activity of watching TV does.
• The main argument shared by Internet skeptics was based
on the presumption that the more time people spend using
the Internet during leisure time, the more time has to be
detracted from social activities (Katz et al. 2001; Nie et al.
2002, Attewel et al. 2003; Gershuny 2003; Robinson and
Martin 2010).
• However, studies emphasizing the negative correlation
between Internet usage and sociability date back to just
shortly before the explosion of online networking, and they
could not differentiate between pure entertainment and
social activities.
• At that time, using the internet was predominantly an
individual activity like watching TV or reading newspapers.
Pew Research Center on Internet & American Life
• Today, the use of the internet is strongly related to being connected
to social networking sites, which in turn entails forms of engagement
in social activities.
• In the U.S. 73% of online teens (aged 12-17) and an equal number
(72%) of young adults (18-29) use social network sites.
• In the U.S. in May 2011 fully 65% of online adults now use social
networking sites.
• This figure marks a dramatic increase from the first time the Project
surveyed usage of social networking sites in February of 2005. At
that time just 8% of internet users or 5% of all adults said they used
SNSs.
• In December 2010, U.S. Internet users were found to be more likely
than others to be active in some kind of voluntary group or
organization: 80% of American Internet users participate in
groups, compared with 56% of non-Internet users.
• Social media users are even more likely to be active: 82% of social
network users and 85% of Twitter users are group participants
(Rainie et al. 2011).
• This evolution makes any comparison between the internet and
TV anachronistic!
Empirical evidence
• Recent empirical evidence suggests that SNSs:
a) support the strengthening of bonding and bridging
social capital (Steinfield et al. 2008, Park et al. 2009; Pénard
and Poussing 2010; Bauernschuster et al. 2011)
b) allow the crystallization of weak or latent ties that might
otherwise remain ephemeral (Haythornthwaite 2005, Ellison
et al. 2007: 2011; Miyata and Kobayashi 2008)
c) facilitate the establishment of collaborations in the
academic community (Matzat 2004)
d) support teenagers' self-esteem - encouraging them to
relate to their peers (Ellison et al. 2007; 2011; Steinfield et al.
2008)
e) stimulate social learning (Burke et al. 2010)
f) enhance social trust (Matzat 2010), civic engagement
(Stern and Adams 2010; Zhang et al. 2010) and political
participation (Gil de Zúñiga et al. 2011)  SEE THE “ARAB
SPRING”!
g) help the promotion of collective action (Landqvist and
Teigland 2010).
Ellison et al. (2007)
• Drawing on survey data from a random sample of 800
undergraduate students, Ellison et al. (2007) find that certain
types of Facebook use can help individuals accumulate and
maintain bridging social capital.
• The authors suspect that the social network helps students to
overcome the barriers to participation so that individuals who
might otherwise shy away from initiating communication with
others are encouraged to do so through the Facebook
infrastructure.
• In the authors' words, highly engaged users are using
Facebook to “crystallize” relationships that might otherwise
remain ephemeral (2007).
• Haythornthwaite (2005) argues that social media create latent
tie connectivity among group members that provides the
technical means for activating weak ties (p. 125). Latent ties
are those social network ties that are technically possible but
not activated socially (p. 137)
The quality of Internet-mediated communication
• Web-mediated asynchronous interactions are not necessarily
of inferior quality compared to simultaneous, face-to-face,
interactions.
• Experiments found that the depth of a friendship can be
significantly improved by computer-mediated
communication. Apparently, by way of online relationships
individuals become far better in expressing their true selves
and feelings (Ellison et al. 2007; Park et al. 2009b; Burke et
al. 2010; Sheldon 2010; Burke and Settles 2011).
• Interactions through the Internet can foster the social
inclusion of individuals suffering from social anxiety, i.e.
anxiety about social situations, interactions with others, and
being evaluated by others (Caplan 2007; Steinfield et al.
2008).
• Thanks to new tools such as Facebook messages and Flickr
mails, many people have regained the habit of writing
letters. Psychological studies claim this form of interaction
can lead to an improvement in the quality of relationships.
Bauernschuster et al. (2011)
• In a recent paper based on data drawn from the 2008
section of the German Socio-Economic Panel and
confidential data provided by Deutsche Telekom,
Bauernschuster et al. (2011) find that having broadband
Internet access at home has positive effects on the
frequency of visiting theaters, the opera, and
exhibitions and on the frequency of visiting friends,
even after controlling for endogeneity through
instrumental variables estimates and by accounting for
county fixed effects.
• Exploring a sub-sample of children aged 7 to 16 living in
the sampled households, the authors further find
evidence that having broadband Internet access at home
increases the number of children's out-of-school social
activities, such as doing sports or ballet, taking music or
painting lessons, or joining a youth club.
Internet, relational goods, and happiness
• Since engagement in relational activities and social
capital are positively correlated with happiness
(Becchetti et al. 2008; Bruni and Stanca 2008; Gui 2010;
Stanca 2010; Bartolini et al. 2011), Internet usage
could also have a positive effect on individual wellbeing (see Pénard and Poussing 2011 and Sabatini
2011).
• It thus seems reasonable to argue that Internet use can
support well-being by counterbalancing some
detrimental effects of the increasing pressure on time.
From the policy point of view, this implies that the
REDUCTION IN THE DIGITAL DIVIDE could be an
effective measure to contain inequalities in the
distribution of well-being.
Summary
• Economic growth and technological
progress can cause the disruption of social
ties and the erosion of social capital 
SOLARIA SYNDROME.
• The Solaria Syndrome can be avoided if
and only if technological progress
contributes to the production of relational
goods at least as much as it contributes to
the production of material goods.
Summary
• This condition would have been irrealistic at the
beginning of the current decade.
• Today, the explosion of online networking has
brought a major change in the role of technology
in the development of our social life.
• When the social environment is poor in
opportunities for participation and/or the
pressure on time increases (for example due to
the need to increase working hours, the social
capital stored in the Internet can help individuals
to defend their sociability.
Summary
• In our view, the Internet is offering us a way
back from Solaria to Earth.
• The reduction in digital divide should be a major
policy objective for the preservation of social
cohesion (making growth more “socially
sustainable” in the long run) and the reduction of
inequalities in the distribution of well-being.
(Besides the obvious benefits for the economic
activity)
Bibliography of this presentation
• All references can be retreived and
downloaded free of charge at the url
http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/
• Photos have been taken from Flickr with a
creative commons license.
Authors are Mitchell Joyce and Aldo Cavini
Benedetti.
Social Capital Gateway is on Facebook too!