When Data Science Meets Sociology — Seeing Dynamic Social Networks from the Viewpoint of Complex Systems

In the era of the rapid development of information technology, how to tackle the inundation of data, build models and analyze important issues that sociologists care about? What is the approach of complex systems in which a society is regarded as a system and the individuals in it are treated as atoms that follow simple rules?

Here we will start from the theory of complex systems and combine data science methods into the empirical research of sociology. We will examine how college students choose minor and double majors or transfer departments. We also analyze the mechanism of formation of friends on Facebook. We hope this talk will give you a glimpse of a first-hand practice of computing sociology and social network research.