Once a photograph is uploaded to social media, it ceases to be part of one?s private archive and becomes public property ? as well as an object of study for researchers. There have been many attempts to study photographs on the scale of "Big Data." Take, for example, the numerous and well-publicised projects by Lev Manovich?s Big Data Lab. Evidently, using the results of one study of the huge online archive of photographs to make conclusions about society at large, is not necessarily a good idea. It?s fair to say that our society is not evenly represented online: a 19-year old woman may be posting her selfies daily, but it doesn?t mean that same goes for a sixty-five year old man. That said, we can learn a lot about cities and their inhabitants from the results of studies such as these.
Courtesy of Strelka Magazine, Alla Shvydkaya

Once a photograph is uploaded to social media, it ceases to be part of one?s private archive and becomes public property ? as well as an object of study for researchers. There have been many attempts to study photographs on the scale of "Big Data." Take, for example, the numerous and well-publicised projects by Lev Manovich?s Big Data Lab. Evidently, using the results of one study of the huge online archive of photographs to make conclusions about society at large, is not necessarily a good idea. It?s fair to say that our society is not evenly represented online: a 19-year old woman may be posting her selfies d...