In Praise of the Digital in Social Research
Excitement come to the field of social science since now its easier to gain mixed data that is difficult to interpret. The most common method of gathering was from face to face interaction that statistically contain a varied amounts of answers. But now "Digital technology records people’s behaviors and attitudes." this opens ups tons of opportunities for research to be done fast and efficiently without having to spend years and years just collecting data. Experimentation that before was hard to do due to the changing environment can now be solve on the internet where scientist can set parameter and control there area of focus.
"But, before we go further we still need to have a debate on the ethics of social research using digital technology, especially on the question of consent... The promise of digital technology as an effective observational instrument... is exciting. But we must figure out a system that incentivizes everyone to uphold ethical standards and prevent harm." - Roby Muhamad
Roby Muhamad is a scientist, tech entrepreneur, and currently teaches at the Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia. This post is featured on MethodSpace under the same title.
This blog post was written by Philip Patino employee at SAGE Publishing under PR Conventions and Social Science Department. As a SAGE employee he helps manage and edits the SAGE hosted sites MethodSpace and Social Science Space.