How can observing online behavior help us better understand the real world?

So the fact that we can now actually study people online gives us the chance to see what it is that people are actually doing in their day to day lives. And to capture these real behaviours and what is interesting about this, is that often times the stuff we observer online is just a mere expression of what we experience offline.

So if we see that someone is listening to Adele on Spotify or has checked in at Starbucks on Oxford Street this is a digital trace but it actually reflects the actual behaviour that happening offline.