Linking surveys and digital trace data: Insights from two studies on determinants of data sharing behavior

Combining surveys and digital trace data can enhance the analytic potential of both data types. We present two studies on factors influencing data sharing behavior for different types of digital trace data: Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and health app data. Across those data types, we compare the relative impact of five factors on data sharing: data type, data sharing method, respondent characteristics, sample composition, and incentives. The results show large differences between the data types and sharing methods, especially related to task difficulty and respondent burden. Higher incentives generally increase data sharing rates, whereas the influence of respondent characteristics depends on the respective data types