The digital transformation profoundly impacts humans and how they behave online and offline. Interactions in online social networks offer new opportunities (e.g., political movements, global cultural diffusion) and risks (e.g., fake news). In this seminar, we examine recent sociological and psychological research on how the digital transformation affects individuals and their social behaviors.

Humans are connected by various social relations. When aggregated, we speak of social networks. This course discusses how social networks are structured, how they change over time and how they affect the individuals that they connect. It integrates social theory with practical knowledge of cutting-edge statistical methods and applications from a number of scientific disciplines.