Jason J. Jones' Identity Trends
Code and datasets for exploring longitudinal identity change.
The goal of this project is to create datasets of unprecedented magnitude in the study of personal identity. Another aim is to make the data accessible and approachable to researchers of all kinds. I will use the methods of computational social science to collect, organize and summarize millions of humans’ self-descriptions from around the world. It is my hope a new generation of social science scholars will make use of these resources to develop and test precise, quantitative models of identity and identity change over the lifespan.
A beta version will soon be available. The beta will draw inspiration from online dashboards such as Google Trends. The user may enter a query and will receive in return a time series of counts. The data behind the beta version is based on the 1% sample of public tweets available through the Twitter API. Output will be aggregates of unique accounts matching particular patterns. For example, one might enter the search term "grandmother" and receive as output the count of all Twitter users active per each day whose profile biography contains the word "grandmother." Further, one could query how many users per day add a particular word to their biography or remove it.
The beta version is limited to users who are likely to be American and English-speaking; they have chosen a US timezone and English as their interface language.
You can find the online interface for this project at http://jasonjones.ninja/jason-j-jones-identity-trends-beta/
About the name: The name of the project is Jason J. Jones' Identity Trends. That is a bit of branding to make the project more easily searchable and to follow in the footsteps of someone I admire who put his name in his titles. https://www.shacknews.com/article/79926/why-sid-meiers-name-is-on-all-his-games