Researchers Are Using YouTube Videos to Study Dog Bites
I use YouTube like many of us do — to watch funny cat videos. But it turns out YouTube might be useful for more than just entertainment. It could actually be a valuable tool for studying dog bites.
A group of researchers from the University of Liverpool decided to use YouTube videos to study dog bites in a new way. They analyzed 143 videos that were uploaded between January 2016 and March 2017 by searching for terms like “dog bite” and “dog attack.”
By watching these videos, the researchers could observe dog bites as they happened. They looked at the context of each bite, the characteristics of both the victim and the dog, and how severe the bite was. In 56 of the videos, they also examined the behaviors of both the human and the dog leading up to the bite.
The study’s findings were quite similar to previous research on dog bites. For example, the majority of the victims were male, and more than half of the bites involved infants and children. The most frequently observed dog breeds were Chihuahuas, German Shepherds, Pit Bulls, and Labrador Retrievers.
When it came to bite severity, age was a key factor: adults experienced more severe bites than infants, and infants more than children. They also noticed that bites were more likely to happen when a person touched the dog or stood/leaned over it in the 20 seconds before the bite occurred.
The researchers acknowledged that using YouTube videos might introduce some bias. For instance, people might be more likely to upload videos of bites from small dogs, thinking they’re less serious or even funny.
Despite being a relatively small study, this method of using videos offers new insights into preventing dog bites. By understanding the situations in which bites occur, new strategies can be developed to avoid them. Using YouTube videos might just be a new and useful tool for furthering this research.
