The proliferation of new technologies, such as mobile devices and social media platforms, has the potential to change the face of public opinion research. The ways in which people both access and share information about opinions, attitudes, and behaviors continue to evolve at a rapid pace. The widespread adoption of smartphones and ubiquity of social media are interconnected trends which may provide researchers with new data collection tools and alternative sources of information to augment or, in some cases, provide alternatives to more traditional data-collection methods. However, this brave new world is not without its share of issues and pitfalls – technological, statistical, methodological, and ethical.
