As noted earlier, the data for this paper is drawn from the NetSense smartphone study. The study consists of nearly two hundred smartphone users drawn from undergraduate students at the University of Notre Dame and has been running for well over two and a half years. In the Fall of 2011, incoming freshmen were offered the opportunity to join the study with the twin goals of studying social interactions as well as the interplay of social interactions and pervasive wireless. Students were provided with a free phone (Google Nexus S1) and free data plan in exchange for
complete monitoring rights for all smartphone activities and communications. Cellular service was provided through Sprint which included unlimited texting, unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling, and unlimited data. Notably, actual message content was not logged but rather only metadata regarding the communications (ex. to, from, length) and the smartphone environment at the time. All data collection was fully approved with the appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) and full participant consent was gained prior to study participation. A comprehensive review of the study mechanics can be found in our prior work.