Closeness in the Social You-niverse is measured using a wide variety of factors, including how you greet each other when writing emails (Dear Professor Einstein versus Hey Al! for example), as well as analysis of emotive tones used in emails between you. Quality Time is a more specific measure of how much time you dedicate to someone, whether in meetings or in writing long – and time-consuming – email messages.

In general, a planet may disappear from its orbit either when there is no evidence of closeness in a given month, or when it does not represent one of the five closest relationships for the month. When this happens, Digital Mirror looks ahead for evidence of the relationship continuing in the future. If there is none, the relationship is deemed to have been severed and instead of simply fading, the planet flares out of existence.

A planet may disappear from its orbit when there is no evidence of closeness in a given month. When evidence of closeness returns for a later date, the planet may reappear.

In this version of Digital Mirror, there is no particular significance to the colors of the planets. Colors are reused to represent different individuals as they are needed. Colors may be used to convey specific characteristics of relationships in some future versions of the software.

Digital Mirror creates this visualization by analyzing, month by month, how close you are to the various people recorded in your email folders. Closeness is measured using a wide variety of factors, including how you greet each other when writing emails: Dear Professor Einstein versus Hey Al! for example), as well as analysis of emotive tones used in emails between you.

Possible reasons why you may not be seeing someone you are expecting include:

• You may be close to someone and not send many emails to them - perhaps you tend to communicate with them some other way, such as in person or by texting them.
• This version of Digital Mirror shows only a limited number of people - perhaps others were selected ahead of the person you are expecting to see. For example, Digital Mirror chooses which individuals to display based both on the degree of closeness and on the length of the relationship, as recorded in your email folders. Someone you were close to for three years is more likely to show up in the visualization than someone you have interacted with for only three months, for example.

This version of Digital Mirror selects the five people closest to you for display at any one time. Others may be waiting in the wings and over time, as they become members of the top five, they may appear and displace others. Some future versions of Digital Mirror may show more than five planets at a time.

The coming and going of planets reflects changes in how close those people are to you over time. If there is a period during which you appear to have no interaction with someone, they may temporarily disappear. Similarly, they may be displaced by someone who appears closer to you for a time and may, in turn, come back to replace someone else.

Sometimes, a relationship seems to end: interactions between you and that person just stop. When Digital Mirror finds evidence of such a severed relationship, it displays it in the form of a comet-like exit from orbit for the relevant planet.

Digital Mirror is designed to create a reasonably wide range of visualizations, not all of which will be applicable to everyone. It is quite likely that, for any individual user, there will not be enough relevant data for every single visualization. This is normal, which is why we provide a sample for you to enjoy!