Advancements in digital technology have introduced new data sources for measuring human behavior, ranging from individual-level tracking methods such as eye-tracking to large-scale societal insights derived from social media data. While such data can offer novel perspectives on human actions, interactions, and collective stances, they also introduce significant methodological and conceptual challenges, since the data creation and processing often include black boxes. Data and algorithmic biases and obfuscation of data due to technological artifacts as well as change in user behavior resulting from interaction with technology can distort results and insights, raising concerns about reliability.

Prof. Dr Jürgen Pfeffer is Chair of Computational Social Science at the School of Social Sciences and Technology at the Technical University of Munich. Pfeffer's research focuses on the analysis of human behavior in large socio-technical systems, such as social media. He is particularly interested in methodological and algorithmic questions, as well as the interplay between negative online dynamics and offline behavior. Furthermore, Pfeffer is particularly interested in the impact of AI-driven systems on democratic processes and human freedoms.