Demographic Diversity on the Web

• Activity Number: 144
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Learning and Data Mining
• Author(s): Jake M. Hofman*+
• Companies: Yahoo Research
• Keywords: web ; browsing ; demographic ; diversity

Abstract

To what extent do the online experiences of, for example, men and women, or Whites and African-Americans differ? We address such questions by pairing web browsing histories for 265,000 anonymized individuals with user-level demographic data---including age, sex, race, education, and income. In one of the most comprehensive analyses of Internet usage patterns to date, we make three broad observations. First, while the majority of popular sites have diverse audiences, there are nonetheless, prominent sites with highly homogeneous user bases. Second, although most users spend a significant fraction of their time on email, search, and social networking sites, there are still large group-level differences in how that time is distributed. Finally, the between-group statistical differences enable reliable inference of an individual's demographic attributes from browsing activity. We thus conclude that while the Internet as seen by different demographic groups is in some regards quite similar, sufficient differences persist so as to facilitate group identification.