In a new paper published in @PLOSONE, Media Lab alum @AlexandraBerke, Prof. @alex_pentland, Prof. @Larson_MIT (@MITCities), and alum @dcalacci draw on a unique, crowdsourced dataset to examine changes in online purchasing behaviors over time, how changes vary across demographic groups, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, and relationships between online and offline retail. The dataset, which the researchers collected from 2018–2022, comprises Amazon.com purchase histories from 5,000 consumers, and was collected and published with the participants’ informed consent. This work demonstrates how crowdsourced, open data about consumer purchasing behavior can enable economic insights that may otherwise only be available to private firms. media.mit.edu/publications/e…

In a paper to be presented at #CSCW2024, a team of Media Lab researchers discuss their recent work crowdsourcing Amazon purchase histories from American consumers. Their dataset, published with the participants' informed consent, presents a rich source of information that is routinely collected by digital platforms, but usually inaccessible to researchers. Additionally, their collection process included an experimental design that helped them discover factors that make people more likely to share their data for open research. The research team included @AlexandraBerke, @RobertMahari, Prof. @alex_pentland, Prof. @Larson_MIT (@MITCities), and alum @dcalacci. medium.com/acm-cscw/insights…

Media Lab researchers @RobertMahari and @AlexandraBerke, with alum @dcalacci, discuss their recent paper; it presents a crowdsourced dataset of Amazon purchase histories from American consumers, published with the participants' informed consent. communities.springernature.c…