Political Eclipse of Religion in Global Digital Identities
How do people see themselves and present their identity in public digital spaces? Are people around the world replacing expressions of religious affiliation with political affiliation?
To address these questions, I employ the methods of ipseology – the study of human identity using large datasets and computational methods. I have created a unique dataset to study identity at scale. From 2009 through the present, I used the Twitter API to observe profile biographies for tens of millions of individuals from around the world. This global, longitudinal dataset of self-descriptive texts allows for consistent, persistent examination of the language people choose to describe themselves.
During the fellowship I will write a research article exploring the prevalence of religious, political, and other affiliations within self-descriptive texts. Across 24 countries and multiple languages, I will compare and contrast how expressions of the self have changed over the past decade.
Main Research Topics
- Identity
- Artificial Intelligence and Society
- Social Networks
- Computational Social Science
Research Results
I documented the words individuals chose to describe themselves. The source of the data was social media profiles for hundreds of millions of users from 32 nations over 10 years.
One aim of this research was to measure the amount of political content within individuals’ self-authored self-descriptions. I found that the amount of political content (candidate and party names, for example) within self-descriptions increased in 30 out of 32 nations.
Another aim of this research was to share the data in formats easy for anyone to use. I accomplished this by creating the Human Identity across Nations of the Earth Ngram Investigator (HINENI). HINENI is a web tool to chart trends in self-description across nations and years. The full database is available for download. Find HINENI at: https://jasonjones.ninja/hineni/
More broadly, the fellowship allowed me to pioneer the field of Ipseology. Ipseology is the study of human identity using large datasets and computational methods. I completed writing a book titled Ipseology – A new science of the self to introduce the field. Find the book at: https://jasonjones.ninja/ipseology-a-new-science-of-the-self-book/
- Jones, J. J. (2023). Ipseology—A new science of the self. Jason Jeffrey Jones Productions. ISBN: 979-8-9896544-0-6. https://jasonjones.ninja/ipseology-a-new-science-of-the-self-book/
- Handzlik, D., Jones, J. J., & Skiena, S. S. (2024). HINENI: Human Identity across the Nations of the Earth Ngram Investigator. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 18, 515–527. https://doi.org/10.1609/icwsm.v18i1.31331
- Jones, J. J., & Skiena, S. (2024). Attitudes Toward Artificial General Intelligence: Results from American Adults in 2021 and 2023. Seeds of Science. https://doi.org/10.53975/8b8e-9e08
- Rojahn, J., Palu, A., Skiena, S., & Jones, J. J. (2023). American public opinion on artificial intelligence in healthcare. Plos One, 18(11), e0294028.
- Collins, A., & Jones, J. J. (2023). Effect of Artificial Intelligence on Social Trust in American Institutions. Journal of Social Computing, 4(3), 221–231. https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2023.0022
- Shugars, S., Zhang, Y., & Jones, J. J. (2024). Editors’ Introduction to Special Issue of JQD:DMin Collaboration with ICWSM. Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media, 4. https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2024.icwsm.1
- Vahabli, D., Jones, J.J.(2025). Identity diversification and homogenization: evidence from frequent estimates of similarity of self-authored, self-descriptive text. J Comput Soc Sc 8, 28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-025-00358-y
Curriculum Vitae
- 2020-Present Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University
- 2014-2020 Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Institute for Advanced Computational Science, Stony Brook University
- 2011-2014 Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, San Diego
- 2011 Ph.D. in Psychology, University of California, San Diego
Publications
A dataset for the study of identity at scale: Annual Prevalence of American Twitter Users with specified Token in their Profile Bio 2015–2020
Jason Jeffrey Jones
PLOS ONE 16(11): e0260185.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260185
Using Twitter Bios to Measure Changes in Self-Identity: Are Americans Defining Themselves
More Politically Over Time?
Nick Rogers and Jason Jeffrey Jones
Journal of Social Computing 2(1), 1-13
https://doi.org/10.23919/JSC.2021.0002
Social Influence and Political Mobilization: Further Evidence from a Randomized Experiment
in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election
Jason Jeffrey Jones, Robert M. Bond, Eytan Bakshy, Dean Eckles, and James H. Fowler
PLOS ONE 12(4): e0173851.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173851