Hello,
Not sure where to put this, but I received an email via the social network analyst listserver about the Social Connectedness Index (produced by Facebook). Facebook is sharing the data with non-profits and researchers (“This tool is only available to nonprofits and researchers. Interested researchers are invited to email sci_data@fb.com to work with the Social Connectedness Index data.”
“The dataset is called the “Social Connectedness Index”, and measures the intensity of social links between geographies as represented through Facebook friends. It corresponds to the (relative) probability that two arbitrary Facebook users across two geographies are friends with each other. The data is available at various levels of geographic aggregation, such as U.S. zip codes. It also exists for regions around the world (e.g., NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions in Europe, GADM1 regions in most countries).”
The data has been used to explore contagion patterns of covid19 in the US. I’m wondering if something else can be done with the data. For example, discover regions that are forgotten/ left behind because they are not connected, look at patterns between social connectedness and community responses.
What are your thoughts?
Katerina
