The Digital Divide Among Twitter Users and Its Implications for Social Research
The Digital Divide Among Twitter Users and Its Implications for Social Research
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DOI：
10.1177/0894439316671698
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发表时间：
2017-12-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Blank, Grant
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Blank, Grant
已有数百篇论文使用Twitter的数据发表，但之前很少有论文报道Twitter用户之间的数字鸿沟。英国的Twitter用户比其他互联网用户更年轻、更富有、受教育程度更高，而其他互联网用户又比不上网的英国人更年轻、更富有、受教育程度更高。美国Twitter用户也比其他人群更年轻、更富有，但他们的受教育程度并不高。推特用户在两国的精英阶层中所占比例都不成比例。Twitter用户的在线活动和态度也与其他群体不同。这些偏见和差异对基于Twitter数据的研究具有重要意义。Twitter用户的非代表性特征表明，Twitter数据不适合用于代表性很重要的研究，例如预测选举或深入了解大量人口的态度、情绪或活动。总的来说，Twitter的数据似乎更适合企业使用，而不是社会科学研究。
Hundreds of papers have been published using Twitter data, but few previous papers report the digital divide among Twitter users. British Twitter users are younger, wealthier, and better educated than other Internet users, who in turn are younger, wealthier, and better educated than the off-line British population. American Twitter users are also younger and wealthier than the rest of the population, but they are not better educated. Twitter users are disproportionately members of elites in both countries. Twitter users also differ from other groups in their online activities and their attitudes. These biases and differences have important implications for research based on Twitter data. The unrepresentative characteristics of Twitter users suggest that Twitter data are not suitable for research where representativeness is important, such as forecasting elections or gaining insight into attitudes, sentiments, or activities of large populations. In general, Twitter data seem to be more suitable for corporate use than for social science research.