The ecology of social interactions in online and offline environments

Abstract: The rise in online social networking has brought about a revolution in social relations. However, its effects on offline interactions and its implications for collective well-being are still not clear and are under-investigated. We study the ecology of online and offline interaction in an evolutionary game framework where individuals can adopt different strategies of socialization. Our main result is that the spreading of self-protective behaviors to cope with hostile social environments can lead the economy to non-socially optimal stationary states.