3G Smartphone technologies for generating personal social network contact distributions and graphs

Abstract

This paper presents a novel means of collecting and analyzing personal social network data, using 3G Smartphone that support Bluetooth connectivity. The application discovers and logs other close-proximity Bluetooth-discoverable devices, and this can be used to infer individuals' proximity, contact duration, as well as geographical location information. The contact data are presented in terms of distributions and visualization tools for evolving contact graphs. Finally, contact data are then demonstrated to be of utility in estimating the potential of the spread of a contact-based infectious disease, where a vector of transmission is proximity to infected agents.