Quantifying cultural attributes for understanding human behavior on the internet

Abstract

Understanding human behavior on the Internet is a complex problem. One important part of the problem is measuring cultural attributes and their effect on human behavior. A clear understanding and comprehensive description of the link between human behavior and cultural attributes is essential for quantifying behavioral change. The objective of this paper is to introduce the result of a survey in which (n = 152) university participants participated in quantifying cultural attributes. The study results suggest that human behavior on the Internet can be linked to various cultural attributes. Notably the qualitative feedback and quantitative statistical results found following the cultural attributes to be important: safety, privacy, self, intuition and networking. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.