Jeffrey Boase

Programs: CCIT & Graduate Appointment at Faculty of Information
Specialization: Communication technology; Network analysis; Digital trace data; Cross-cultural research; Mobile communication

Jeffrey Boase holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. He spent a year at the Harvard Kennedy School on a predoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Digital Government. After completing his Ph.D., he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Social Psychology at The University of Tokyo.

Research:
Dr. Jeffrey Boase researches the role that communication technology plays in the constriction and expansion of personal networks. His current project examines this issue using survey, interview, and digital trace data collected from more than 900 consenting adults and teens across Canada. He is using this data to write about the apparent tension between the tendency for individuals in industrialized societies to have social complex personal networks, and the observation that mobile devices appear to limit personal network complexity by facilitating constant and intense interaction with small numbers of stable relationships. This project is funded by an Insight grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).