The rainbow photos on Facebook is a social research
If you have ever filled out a survey, you may have been surprised to see that some of the questions have only two response options. It is true that the ability to understand the behavior of people from questions so simple and not very permeable to nuances can be questioned, but in a global sense this type of surveys have statistical utility .
Although it seems strange, the fact that many people find themselves in the situation of having to choose one or the other answer helps to establish profiles, study which variables influence that decision and know in broad strokes why one or the other answer is chosen .
What about rainbow photos on Facebook could be a social investigation
We have recently witnessed another phenomenon that could be interpreted as a type of social research: the option of Apply a rainbow filter on the profile picture used on Facebook .
This initiative, which has been related to the ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in favor of homosexual marriage (by the way, a day earlier something similar happened in Mexico without so much stir) has materialized in an option of automatic modification of the profile picture that a lot of the habitual people of the social network have had to accept or reject. Does this situation sound like? Yes, it is practically the same context in which the questions of an online questionnaire or survey are presented.
Why would Facebook want to study this kind of thing?
Well, actually the question should be: Why should I not want to study it? Facebook is an endless source of information for research based on data mining, since the social network is made up of millions of people who minute by minute upload texts, photographs and states that are easily analyzed by a computer system. The potential is incredible and practically unattainable.
See, for example, the utility that Mark Zuckerberg's invention can have in establishing personality models, as we saw in this article.
However, the possibility of coloring the profile image has a special interest. Using the rainbow is rarely the result of boredom, decisions taken lightly or the simple desire to pretend to have an open mind. Even in the XXI century, supporting the equality of all people regardless of their sexual preferences has a revolutionary, almost controversial, and can have adverse effects on the person who decides to make their defense of these values visible.
Discussions, defamatory comments on the backs, family problems ... face for equality is always free. therefore, the decision to apply or not the rainbow filter will possibly be addressed from a more thorough analysis than that which leads to placing a loop in favor of the victims of terrorism or an avatar related to the type of music that is amateur. Besides, the LGTB flag It is internationally known, so everyone who puts it on as a filter will attribute a similar meaning to it. The same will happen with all those people who see it.
Possible points of interest
In the end, the data extracted from a simple click to modify the profile picture can be used to, among other things, create statistical models that allow to see:
- To what extent do people who stand up for homosexual marriage they do so influenced by the number of Facebook friends who do the same.
- To what extent the fact of having placed the filter affects the appearance of conflicts or the deterioration of ties (Measurable indirectly through the number of interactions with others via Facebook and the frequency with which people click on the option "stop being friends" in the weeks after the filter application.
- The typology of the people who put the filter , the one of those who do not wear it, and study their interactions through Facebook.
- The relationship between all these variables and the political preferences registered in Facebook, the attachment for certain brands, etc.
... and many other possibilities, as many as response and interaction options offered by the social network.
It is not a crazy possibility, taking into account that everything we do ceases to be private when it enters Facebook and companies are perfectly capable of paying for all kinds of information and, in addition, this also applies to the studies in Social psychology and sociology made to order. In fact, there is already a very similar precedent.
