Question: For social science, do you need a lot of digital resources i.e. computers?

Anna Middleton answered on 7 Mar 2014:

Hi @Morgans
No you don’t need lots of computers to do social science but personally I tend to find it easier to manage if everything is stored electronically. Social scientists can use many methods but I tend to do my social science using just two – surveys and interviews. The online surveys I design (e.g. see http://www.genomethics.org) gather large sets of data from thousands of people. The interviews tend to be face-to-face and either filmed or audio-recorded and these tend to be on smaller numbers. I bring together all the attitudes in one place in a database and look at trends and patterns in views. I could do this by hand but its just easier on a computer. I also use social media a lot too. Are you on Twitter? If so I’m here: @genomethics