Social data revolution

The social data revolution is the shift in human communication patterns towards increased personal information sharing and its related implications, made possible by the rise of social networks in the early 2000s. This phenomenon has resulted in the accumulation of unprecedented amounts of public data.[1]

This large and frequently updated data source has been described as a new type of scientific instrument for the social sciences.[2] Several independent researchers have used social data to "nowcast" and forecast trends such as unemployment, flu outbreaks,[3] mood of whole populations,[4] travel spending and political opinions in a way that is faster, more accurate and cheaper than standard government reports or Gallup polls.[2]

Social data refers to data individuals create that is knowingly and voluntarily shared by them. Cost and overhead previously rendered this semi-public form of communication unfeasible, but advances in social networking technology from 2004–2010 has made broader concepts of sharing possible.[5] The types of data users are sharing include geolocation, medical data,[6] dating preferences, open thoughts, interesting news articles, etc.

The social data revolution enables not only new business models like the ones on Amazon.com but also provides large opportunities to improve decision-making for public policy and international development.[7]

The analysis of large amounts of social data leads to the field of computational social science. Classic examples include the study of media content[8] or social media content.[3][4][9]

  1. ^ Weigend, Andreas. "The Social Data Revolution". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 15, 2009.
  2. ^ a b Hubbard, Douglas (2011). Pulse: The New Science of Harnessing Internet Buzz to Track Threats and Opportunities. John Wiley & Sons.
  3. ^ a b Vasileios Lampos; Nello Cristianini (2012). "Nowcasting Events from the Social Web with Statistical Learning". ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology. 3 (4): 1–22. doi:10.1145/2337542.2337557. S2CID 8297993. 72.
  4. ^ a b Thomas Lansdall-Welfare; Vasileios Lampos; Nello Cristianini (August 2012). "Nowcasting the mood of the nation". Significance Magazine. Vol. 9, no. 4. pp. 26–28. doi:10.1111/j.1740-9713.2012.00588.x.
  5. ^ Swathi Dharshana Naidu (December 2009). "Social Data Revolution". Posterous. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  6. ^ Dyson, Esther (March 23, 2010). "Health, not Health Care!". Huffington Post. Retrieved June 8, 2010.
  7. ^ Hilbert, Martin (2013). "Big Data for Development: From Information- to Knowledge Societies". SSRN Scholarly Paper (2205145). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. SSRN 2205145. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. ^ Detecting macropatterns in global media content
  9. ^ Twitter Mood: The Effects of the Recession on Public Mood in the UK