How computation social sciences read our digital traces
How computation social sciences read our digital traces
Has George Orwell’s 1984 become reality? With this question, Prof. Frank Schweitzer from ETH Zurich started the lecture on a relatively new field of research- computational social sciences. Together with Prof. David Lazer from Northeastern University, they provided some fascinating insights into how our daily digital traces, compounded in massive sets of data, can reveal information about social behavioral patterns and collective emotions.
Prof. Schweitzer made clear in the beginning that while Orwell’s Big Brother collected data intentionally, today’s data is produced mostly unintentionally, and is a by-product of our daily, digital lives. Research programs, such as ETH’s prominent FuturICT flagship proposal, aim at developing a better understanding of the complex, social interactive system, and thus, extract meaning from huge amount of data produced every day. Amongst others, Prof. Schweitzer presented his research project analyzing the emotional persistence in online chat communities, concluding that most users express mostly positive emotions. Subsequently, Prof. Lazer completed the picture by focusing on how digital traces reveal the pattern of social relations, whether it is related to politics, or to situations of natural catastrophes. Did you know, for example, that the news spread on Twitter about the Virginia Earthquake, in August 2011, travelled faster than the earthquake itself?
As both professors pointed out, although computational social sciences have the potential to develop a much better understanding of social networks and interactions, there are still many challenges to be faced. What are the implications for public policy? Where are the limits between public interest and privacy issues? With these and many other questions, the evening ended in a lively discussion among the nearly 50 people over drinks and food.
