Digital Footprints as a New Source of Data on Quality of Life and Well-Being: An Overview of Current Trends
The article presents an overview of foreign research devoted to the study of the quality of life and well-being of the population by methods of digital sociology, i.e. with the help of new information and communication technologies (such as big data, machine learning, social network analysis, etc.). The most promising and actively developing area of research is the study of digital footprints of users, primarily in social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, etc.). The advantages (a high degree of detail in the distribution of user ratings over time and space, ability to get more information in general, availability at any time, speed of research, reducing the cost of conducting surveys, flexibility of methodology, etc.) and disadvantages (the problem of representativeness and reliability of data) of using such a methodology to study the quality of life and well-being of the population are discussed. Two main strategies for studying the quality of life and well-being of the population are considered, based on a different understanding of the role and significance of information and communication technologies in people’s daily lives. The first strategy - external - considers digital technologies as an external and self-sufficient factor that affects people’s daily lives. This strategy is to identify the impact of digital technologies (mainly social media) on individual nuances of quality of life and well-being (life satisfaction, social capital, social support, mental health, depression and fears, loneliness, etc.). The second strategy - internal - does not single out digital technologies as a separate external factor but considers digital technologies as an integral part of people’s daily existence. In this case, life in the online information space and life in the physical offline environment are inseparable components of the holistic existence of a modern person, so the analysis of human behavior and reactions in the information space carries as reliable information about the quality of life and well-being of a person as traditional data sources (surveys, etc.). It is concluded that despite significant methodological difficulties and a certain caution of many sociologists regarding the methods of digital sociology, this direction has great prospects and further improvement of the technological component of these studies will make digital methods of studying the quality of life and well-being as reliable as traditional survey methods in sociology.