Mixing Patterns in a Large Social Network

We study mixing in a large real social network consisting of over one million individuals, who form an Internet community and organise themselves in groups of different sizes. We consider mixing according to discrete characteristics such as gender and scalar characteristics such as age. On the basis of the users' list of friends and other data registered in the database we investigate the structure and time development of the network. We found that in the network under investigation assortative mixing is observed, i.e. the tendency for vertices in network to be connected to other vertices that are like them in some way. (author)