Social Media Data for Environmental Sustainability: A Critical Review of Opportunities, Threats, and Ethical Use

Social media data are changing the game for sustainability science. Every day, millions of people post about the places they visit, the wildlife they spot, the weather they’re experiencing, and the environmental issues they care about. That’s a massive, real-time stream of information about how humans interact with the natural world.

Researchers are running into roadblocks around data access — platforms locking down their data or changing the rules. And there are real ethical concerns about how all that personal information gets used.

A new review of the scientific literature looked at how social media data are being used in environmental and sustainability research. The findings? This kind of data can play a unique and irreplaceable role in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, it allows researchers to:

• Understand human-nature interactions on a large scale (not just in a lab or a survey)
• Track how social and ecological systems change over time
• Study how people collectively shape and share their values about nature

The same things that make social media data powerful also make it tricky. Researchers need to balance transparency (so their work can be verified and built upon) with privacy protection (so people’s data isn’t misused). They also need to make sure the research is inclusive, and not just reflecting the voices of people who post the most.

How society handles these trade-offs will determine whether social media data become a tool for the common good —helping protect the planet and the people on it. The researchers hope their work contributes to a wider conversation about using social media data responsibly, for sustainability science and beyond.

Abstract

Social media data are transforming sustainability science. However, challenges from restrictions in data accessibility and ethical concerns regarding potential data misuse have threatened this nascent field. Here, we review the literature on the use of social media data in environmental and sustainability research. We find that they can play a novel and irreplaceable role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by allowing a nuanced understanding of human-nature interactions at scale, observing the dynamics of social-ecological change, and investigating the co-construction of nature values. We reveal threats to data access and highlight scientific responsibility to address trade-offs between research transparency and privacy protection, while promoting inclusivity. This contributes to a wider societal debate of social media data for sustainability science and for the common good.