A new way to see ourselves

Eric Fischer’s data point maps shed new light on our use of social media.

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Eric Fischer creates social media maps with data from Flickr and Twitter. Here, he stands on Fairmont Ridge in San Leandro, Calif., with the night lights of the East Bay (Hayward, San Leandro, Oakland) as a backdrop.

Winni Wintermeyer / FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Flickr and Twitter both have options to show a poster’s location, called geotagging. Fischer plots the data and geotags in colored dots on maps using a computer program he wrote. While Flickr use (designated by orange dots) blankets the U.S. map, Twitter use (in blue) spreads out from the East Coast. Fischer was surprised at the significant discrepancy between Twitter use and Flickr use.

Map by Eric Fischer

In this map of the Washington area, Eric Fischer used a computer program to plot where people of different ages live. Each red dot represents 25 adults (age 18 or older), and each blue dot represents 25 children (18 or younger). The data come from the 2010 Census.

Map by Eric Fischer

In this map of the Washington area, Fischer used a computer program to plot where people of different races and ethnicities live. Fischer's inspiration was a map by Bill Rankin of Chicago's racial and ethnic divides; Fischer used the same colors to designate different groups. The color red represents white people; blue is black; green is Asian; orange is Hispanic; gray is "other." Each dot represents 25 people. The data come from the 2000 Census.

Map by Eric Fischer

In this map of the Washington area, also inspired by Bill Rankin's Chicago map, Fischer used 2010 Census data in his computer program to locate people of different races and ethnicities. The color red represents white people; blue is black; green is Asian; orange is Hispanic; gray is "other." Each dot represents 500 people.

Map by Eric Fischer

In this map of the Washington metropolitan area, Flickr use shows up as orange bursts, while Twitter talk, in blue, is sprinkled across the region.

Map by Eric Fischer

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