Tracking Data on Twitter
I was
stumbling around on the interwebs trying to figure out why so many people use
Twitter, and I came across this article written by Beth Kenkel about scientists
on Twitter. Qing Ke, Yong-Yeol Ahn, and Cassidy Sugimoto conducted a thorough
analysis of scientists on Twitter and discovered some interesting findings in
their article titled, ‘A Systematic Identification and Analysis of Scientistson Twitter’. Some of their findings were:
1. Historians and Psychologists have the
most Twitter users.
2. Physical scientists are
underrepresented on Twitter. Social and Computer Scientists are
overrepresented.
3. 60% of scientists on Twitter are male.
4. Scientists retweet Instagram more than
any other social media domain.
5. Scientists tweet URLs with scientific
domains less than 10% of the time.
6. Scientists tend to follow other
scientists within their field of science more than scientists outside of their
field.
I think that
the research itself is intriguing because it shows how data can be easily mined
from the Twitterverse. It seems like a lot of different studies could be
conducted on various groups of people and this could possibly be helpful for
policy makers from all fields – enabling open lines of communication in, and
between, specific groups. It is mesmerizing that we can use this data to get a
glance of connections being made all around the world, and I am now wondering
how machine learning will affect this data in the near future. Does anyone else
think that it is scary that anyone in the world can easily track communication
between communities online? What is stopping people from using this data for
nefarious purposes? What precautions should people take when interacting and/or
sharing information with different groups on Twitter?
Great post Sam! I agree it's very interesting data and I would like to see additional research conducted on other CoP's. In regards to tracking, yes all tracking can be used for nefarious purposes. It's the way of the world I'm afraid. There are ways to make you, and your data, more secure, but if a hacker wants to hack you...you're getting hacked:
ReplyDeletehttps://pando.com/2013/10/26/i-challenged-hackers-to-investigate-me-and-what-they-found-out-is-chilling/
Hi Sam,
ReplyDeleteI just wrote a blog post on trying to find my own personal data to create a social network map and during that post thought about the different ways such data can be used. I do think that this information is prime to be mined for all sorts of purposes be they nefarious, benign and altruistic. There are all three types of people in the world who can use our personal data either on an individual basis or in a grouped way. I don't think that any of us should assume that information we put out onto the web is safe even when we are assured that it is protected. The keepers of that information almost all have a goal of using it to generate profit (such as targeted advertising). And we know that hackers can infiltrate almost any system; we see the proof of this on a regular basis as large corporations are attacked and data is breached.
This is so interesting! Thanks for sharing your finds on Twitter analytics. I never thought of the audience that way. Cool.
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