Online Social Networks Analysis for Digitalization Evaluation

Abstract

The majority of countries is committed to developing the digital economy. The article discusses the potential use of online social networks to assess the level of digitalization. A brief overview of international indices used for evaluating digitalization, as well as Russian studies of regional digitalization are provided. In particular, using the developed software, the number of users in different cities and regions of one of the most popular online social networks in the post-Soviet space VKontakte is analyzed. The obtained results are compared with official statistics on the number of residents in regions and settlements. The problems that a researcher faces when using social networks as a source of statistical data are discussed. Conclusions are drawn about the possibility of applying data obtained from the analysis of online social networks as components of the indices when evaluating digitalization.