Social media posts can be used to track individuals’ income and economic inequalities

Newswise — Scientists from Queen Mary University of London studied 2.6 million posts on the social media platform Nextdoor and successfully predicted people's income by only looking at the posts they shared. The researchers noticed significant variations in the content shared by individuals residing in wealthier areas compared to those in poorer neighborhoods. This finding led them to believe that our overall online activity, not just on Nextdoor, can disclose our socioeconomic status, potentially allowing for user profiling.

Having knowledge of users' income could enable social media platforms to provide income-based recommendations and allow advertisers and online stores to target individuals according to their economic profile. This could involve tailoring specific products and pricing strategies based on users' income levels.

The study's findings indicate that individuals residing in wealthier neighborhoods tended to share more positive posts on social media. However, they also displayed a higher tendency to discuss crime, despite the actual crime rates being lower compared to poorer neighborhoods.

Dr. Ignacio Castro, the lead researcher and Lecturer in Data Analytics at Queen Mary University of London, stated that their study demonstrated a distinction between the text posted by users in poor and wealthy neighborhoods. The content shared by online users reflects socioeconomic factors, with wealthier neighborhoods displaying more discussions about crime but an overall higher level of positive sentiment in their posts.

The recently published study, conducted by researchers, examined Nextdoor, a social media platform, in the first large-scale analysis of its kind. The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media on June 2nd, explored how income levels and income inequality are reflected in online behavior. The researchers collected and analyzed a vast dataset of 2.6 million posts from 64,283 neighborhoods in the United States and 3,325 neighborhoods in the United Kingdom. The data was gathered from November 2020 to September 2021. Nextdoor, with its 10 million users, provides a platform for verified residents to engage in discussions specific to their neighborhoods. The study's findings were consistent in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

The study reveals that residents residing in wealthier neighborhoods display a higher level of concern regarding crime. Specifically, the research indicates that the top 20% wealthiest neighborhoods engage in discussions about crime approximately 1.5 times more frequently than the poorest neighborhoods. Interestingly, this occurs despite the fact that actual crime rates are 1.3 times higher in the poorer neighborhoods. Moreover, individuals living in affluent neighborhoods with lower levels of income inequality demonstrate the highest level of discussion about crime compared to other groups.

The study findings indicate that discussions related to non-violent crimes are more prevalent than discussions regarding violent crimes. This trend is observed across both the United States and the United Kingdom, with substantial similarity in user content trends between the two countries. However, there is an interesting distinction regarding discussions on weapons and violent crimes. In wealthier neighborhoods, residents in the United States tend to engage in more conversations about these topics compared to their counterparts in the United Kingdom. However, for middle-income neighborhoods, residents in the United Kingdom exhibit a higher tendency to post about this type of crime compared to residents in the United States.