- Data and Methods:
We will ask Bowdoin students in Sociology 3010 for access to their text messages. We will ask for screenshots of conversations, preferably the start to end of a conversation topic or threads. The text can be from any SMS platform, including Facebook messenger, text messages, direct messages, Whatsapp, etc. If permitted, we would like to analyze the language used by older millennials such as Bowdoin staff and professors to compare it to the data we collected from millennials enrolled at Bowdoin College. We want to start with a small sample size but we are open to expanding the research and gathering more data if time permits. We will implement the “snowball” sampling method if we need access to more data. We still start compiling data from March 26th until April 9th then analyze the digital text. We are also considering conducting follow-up questionnaires or short interviews to ask respondents why they use punctuations, visuals, or slang in their messages.