Regional Use of Social Networking Tools

December 17, 2014 • Technical Report

By

Kate Meeuf

This paper explores the regional use of social networking services (SNSs) to determine if participation with a subset of SNSs can be applied to identify a user's country of origin.

Publisher

Software Engineering Institute

CMU/SEI Report Number

CMU/SEI-2014-TR-018

DOI (Digital Object Identifier)

10.1184/R1/6582980.v1

Subjects

Situational Awareness

Abstract

Existing open source reporting yields an understanding of the market penetration of social networking tools for various regions and countries.
Preferences for social networking tools have become somewhat universal. Irrespective of location, users are gravitating towards the same tools.
The native social networking services of countries in Northern Asia and Eastern Europe have remained relevant. These tools can be leveraged as discriminators to resolve a user’s location.
Reporting provided evidence to suggest that mobile devices influence SNS selection and promote social networking adoption.
Cultural factors provide insights into the regional usage of social networking tools, but additional research and quantitative analysis are required to add fidelity to the employment of cultural indicators in deriving a user’s country of origin.
Which social networking tools are used is only part of the equation when resolving a user’s location. Other variables should be incorporated to create an informed assessment of the social media output’s geographic origin.