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We revisit here both, using public data recorded by the <jats:italic>sociopatterns<\/jats:italic> wearable sensors in some very different sociological environments, putting particular emphasis on the contact duration timelines. As well known, the distribution of the contact duration for all the interactions within a group is broad, with tails that resemble each other, but not precisely, in different contexts. By separating each interacting pair, we find that the <jats:italic>fluctuations<\/jats:italic> of the contact duration around the mean-interaction time follow however a very similar pattern. This common robust behavior is observed on 7 different datasets. It suggests that, although the set of persons we interact with and the mean-time spent together, depend strongly on the environment, our tendency to allocate more or less time than usual with a given individual is invariant, i.e. governed by some rules that lie outside the social context. Additional data reveal the same fluctuations in a baboon population. This new metric, which we call the relation \u201ccontrast\u201d, can be used to build and test agent-based models, or as an input for describing long duration contacts in epidemiological studies.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1140\/epjds\/s13688-023-00444-z","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,10]],"date-time":"2024-01-10T09:02:15Z","timestamp":1704877335000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["On the duration of face-to-face contacts"],"prefix":"10.1140","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1278-109X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"St\u00e9phane","family":"Plaszczynski","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Gilberto","family":"Nakamura","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Basile","family":"Grammaticos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Mathilde","family":"Badoual","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,10]]},"reference":[{"issue":"10","key":"444_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"818","DOI":"10.1038\/nphys1760","volume":"6","author":"C Song","year":"2010","unstructured":"Song C, Koren T, Wang P, Barab\u00e1si A-L (2010) Modelling the scaling properties of human mobility. 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