Social Media Studies May Not be Scientifically Sound

Analyzing big data is a great idea, but without the rigors of the scientific method, social media studies can distort our perceptions of network use and human behavior.

social media studies

When it comes to social media statistics, there are often impressive sounding metrics that upon closer scrutiny may be padded or unimportant. Similarly, there appears to be weak methodology in scientific studies of users on social media that may lead to the data being unsound and unscientific.

Sampling the population via social media is problematic because of its ubiquity and lack of standards. “[M]ounting evidence suggests that many of the forecasts and analyses being produced misrepresent the real world,” according to Juergen Pfeffer and Derek Ruths, authors of a recent paper titled “Social media for large studies of behavior,” which appeared in Science.

One of the main problems identified in the paper was sampling bias.

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