• Covid
• Data Science
• Ego network
• Lockdown
• Signed ego network
• Twitter
• X

One of the most impactful measures to fight the COVID
19 pandemic in its early first years was the lockdown, implemented by
governments to reduce physical contact among people and minimize op
portunities for the virus to spread. As people were compelled to limit
their physical interactions and stay at home, they turned to online social
platforms to alleviate feelings of loneliness. Ego networks represent how
people organize their relationships due to human cognitive constraints
that impose limits on meaningful interactions among people. Physical
contacts were disrupted during the lockdown, causing socialization to
shift entirely online, leading to a shift in socialization into online plat
forms. Our research aimed to investigate the impact of lockdown mea
sures on online ego network structures potentially caused by the increase
of cognitive expenses in online social networks. In particular, we exam
ined a large Twitter dataset of users, covering 7 years of their activities.
We found that during the lockdown, there was an increase in network
sizes and a richer structure in social circles, with relationships becoming
more intimate. Moreover, we observe that, after the lockdown measures
were relaxed, these features returned to their pre-lockdown values.