Analysis of Human Thoughts in the Big Data Era: A Case Study of Showerthought Sub-Reddit

Abstract

To be able to figure out how and what human think is a task many have tried to accomplish. In the past, instant thoughts are almost unmeasurable for there are no materials that can assist the studies of thoughts. In the digital, big data era, where social media become more common, ideas can easily be shared. Still, instant thought is hard to pinpoint for it is ephemeral and probably no solid methodology is available for their collection. This study made use of a sub-Reddit called the Showerthoughts to serve as a corpus to figure out the features of instant thoughts. The results showed some instant thoughts are unique in patterns and functions, especially in restating the known, to hypothesize, and to redefine. The language used is also specific to achieve these goals.