This Cornell Alumni Magazine story explores the work of Cornell's Social Dynamics Laboratory, which uses online networks to study human behavior at a once-unimaginable scale.
"The advent of the Internet and social media isn’t just important to sociology because of the vast amounts of data it generates—and in fact, Macy doesn’t favor the term 'big data' to describe it, because its value lies not just in its quantity but in its quality," the story says. " 'These digital traces from social media provide detailed, time-stamped indicators of what people are thinking and doing at a granular level, and on a global scale,' " Macy says in the story. " he says. “ 'It’s pretty remarkable.' "
Read the full Cornell Alumni Magazine story here.
