Using of sociological research techniques via social media and comparing with the data of field research

Our life becomes digital via social media. In our daily life, doing many things on social media is a kind of proof for this situation. People's sharing their lives on social media and the frequency of using social media move it beyond the virtual environment. This situation means that there are some traces relating to social reality on social media. Following the traces of the social reality on social media and transforming these traces into scientific data mean that we can understand the social reality via social media. The traces relating to the social reality obtained from social media are transformed into scientific data by means of scientific methods and techniques. This process brings the matter of how to use scientific methods and techniques on or through social media into question. Sociology is a science field dealing with social reality. Researching the social reality through social media makes social media an important source and/or instrument for sociology. Sociological researches are conducted on or through social media by means of designing social researches on or through social media and choosing techniques used on these researches by considering the social media. In this study, a sample sociological research is conducted not only on social media but also in real social life by means of scientific methods and techniques, the obtained data is analysed by comparing in respect of using scientific methods and techniques on social media. As a result of this comparison, there is no significant difference between the result of the research conducted on social media and the result of the research conducted in real social life, therefore, it is concluded that sociological researches can be conducted through social media as well as researches conducted in real social life.