互联网社会科学实验：数字时代行为与社会研究的新方法

互联网社会科学实验，是伴随着日常生活的数字化而兴起的一种新型随机控制实验方法。它致力于以自然发生的互联网空间为田野，对潜藏于在线行为与互联网现象背后的因果机制展开科学性的探索与检验。作为田野实验方法在数字时代的新发展，互联网社会科学实验一方面遵循着田野实验方法的基本要求，如“理论先行”“自然发生”“随机分组”“高度控制”和“外部干预”；另一方面，也因研究对象与实验环境的变化而表现出一定的独特性，包括大规模、稳定且多样的受试者池，突破时空限制的大量样本数据，实验过程的自动化，实验数据的实时记录和超越微观个体层面的关注视野等。该方法尽管仍存在着一定的缺陷，但既有应用成果业已证明其在社会科学研究中无疑有着巨大的发展潜力。

Internet Social Science Experiment:A New Approach to Behaviorand Social Studies in the Digital Age

Internet social science experiment is a new type of stochastic control experiment method that arises with the digitization of daily life.Taking the Internet space thatnaturally occurs as its field,it scientifically explores and examines the causal mechanism hidden in the online behavior and the Internet phenomena.As a new development of the field experiment method in the digital age,Internet social science experiment follows the basic requirements of the field experiment method such as "theory first","natural occurrence","random grouping","high control" and "external intervention" on the one hand;on the other hand,it also shows some unique characteristics due to the changes of the research object and the experimental environment,including a large-scale,stable and diverse pool of subjects,a large number of sample data breaking through time and space constraints,automation of the experimental process,real-time record of experimental data and view of attention beyond the microscopic individual level.Although this method still has some defects,the existing applications have proved that there is undoubtedly great potential for the development in social science research.