The term "computer-aided social science" belongs to the category of big data, smart data and the digital society. This involves social scientists using computers and modern software to better understand social phenomena.
Instead of just using traditional surveys or interviews, researchers today are increasingly working with huge data sets that are generated by social networks, for example. Special programmes are used to analyse this data and identify patterns or correlations that would often have remained hidden using traditional methods.
An illustrative example: researchers could analyse how opinions on certain topics, such as climate change, spread on social media. To do this, they collect public posts from platforms such as Twitter, process them on a computer and recognise trends or influencing factors that could be important for politics and companies.
Computer-aided social science thus helps to interpret large and complex amounts of data in a meaningful way in order to make well-founded decisions. It combines technical expertise with social science issues and thus supports a better understanding of our digital society.
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