Key Messages
Uncovering The Truth Behind Big Data: How It Can Reveal Our Secrets, Unusual Preferences, And Even Save Lives
Behind the big data curtain, there is a wealth of information just waiting to be uncovered.
With all this data being collected on various aspects of our lives, it can help us understand the truth beneath the surface in ways we never thought possible.
Whether it’s analysis or revealing patterns in our behavior, or identifying preferences that we were never aware of before, big data opens up a world of possibilities and shines a light on what may have been lurking in darkness.
Find out what’s hiding behind the big data curtain-like whether women have kinky apple-related preferences; which cities are still enabling the American Dream; and should big data be used to prevent suicide? With these findings, decisions can be made more accurately and effectively than ever before.
Uncover something new with Big Data!
Big Data: An Intuitive Yet Precise Way Of Predicting The Future
The author of Everybody Lies explains how data science can be surprisingly intuitive.
To demonstrate this, he recalls his grandmother’s experience.
When advised her grandson on the ideal partner, she listed many qualities that she had observed over the course of many successful relationships.
She was using data gathered from countless observations to recognize patterns and predict outcomes – though unknowingly.
Data science is more than just an academic exercise; it’s something we subconsciously do every day in our lives.
We’re constantly gathering information, analyzing it and making predictions about what might happen next.
But even if we’re adept at extracting patterns from the data before us, there are still limits to our intuition.
For example, his grandmother thought that relationships tend to last longer if partners have mutual friends – a notion based on personal experiences – but the actual hard data suggests otherwise!
A study conducted by Lars Backstrom and Jon Kleinberg found that couples with more friends in common were more likely to split up after some time.
Google Demonstrates How Big Data Revolutionizes Everything We Know About The World
Google is a great example of how big data can continuously offer us new and valuable information.
Back before the days of big data, it would take a long time to collect figures and statistics.
For instance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics would have to use phone surveys to calculate current unemployment rates; or the CDC issuing a report on infection rates for disease.
But now with Google’s access to vast amounts of data, all of this can be done much quicker, efficiently and effectively.
Take for instance engineer Jeremy Ginsberg who used Google’s data about flu-related searches to track its spread across both geographical areas and over time.
As you can see, access to massive amounts of data enables us to uncover novel information in ways previously not possible!
Why People Lie On Surveys: Social Desirability And Big Data Offer Accurate Insights
Data collection has long been a source of reliable information – and when it comes to understanding the thoughts, beliefs, desires and behaviors of people, big data is definitely the way to go.
Unlike survey results which are prone to social desirability bias, big data doesn’t lie.
Big data is based on online behavior that can be tracked with no filter or questioner present.
This gives us an unfiltered view of what we are thinking about and searching for online.
Take for example someone searching for “anal apple” on a porn site – such results would normally not be revealed in traditional surveys due to social desirability bias.
But with big data, that information is easily accessible, giving us a clearer picture of what the public wants or needs from us.
In short, when it comes to obtaining truthful information about human behavior, nothing beats big data!
Big Data Reveals That The American Dream Still Exists – But Not Everywhere
Big Data holds tremendous potential, as it allows us to gain important insights into the world around us.
One of the amazing features of Big Data is that it can help us understand small data subsets too.
This was demonstrated recently when Harvard professor Raj Chetty investigated whether people still believed in the American dream.
He made use of US IRS tax records to find out if people from poor backgrounds could still become rich and successful.
He had over a billion records at his disposal which allowed him to get an overview and zoom into specific states, cities, towns or even individual neighborhoods.
It was this remarkable capacity for detail that really made Big Data stand out: Chetty found that in some places like San Jose, California, a poor American stood a 12.9 percent chance of getting rich – better than their Danish counterparts!
While other locations fared worse (e.g., Charlotte, North Carolina with only a 4.4 percent chance).
The Power Of Big Data Lies In Its Ability To Perform A/B Tests And Reveal Causality
Big Data makes running A/B tests a lot easier and cheaper than it was before.
With its help, the process of learning about cause-and-effect relationships can be conducted with greater precision.
Nowadays, randomised, controlled experiments—commonly referred to as A/B tests—can be carried out with relative ease due to Big Data.
For example, we could run a test where a group of people drink a glass of red wine each day and another group don’t touch alcohol at all for a year – then analyze the two groups in order to discover whether drinking moderately has an effect on health.
Big data also makes it much more feasible for companies or campaigns to write programs that analyze the data from their attempts at creating optimized designs for webpages, billboards or other activities.
Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign – where they used different combinations of photos and text – is an excellent example of this in action.
Given these advantages, it should come as no surprise that many organizations have turned to big data analysis when they need reliable feedback fast.
The Dangers Of Relying On Big Data Alone: Overlooking The Complexities Of Human Experience
When it comes to big data, more isn’t always better.
If there are too many variables in the dataset, it can be difficult to get reliable results.
Take, for example, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin’s analysis of the DNA and IQ levels of several hundred students.
He initially found a correlation between high IQs and one particular gene, IGF2r.
Unfortunately, after repeating the dataset comparison a few years later, this correlation was nowhere to be seen.
This just highlights how many variables can obscure meaningful patterns – so much so that any correlation could have merely happened by chance.
Furthermore, big data often doesn’t provide enough insight into nonquantifiable issues, such as user experience on sites like Facebook.
To get a better understanding of those concerns, companies need to combine small data with bigger datasets in order to gain a comprehensive picture of the problem at hand.
It’s clear that big data is not perfect when there are too many variables or nonmeasurable uses involved.
To accurately and meaningfully analyse large sets of information requires a combination of both big and small data if substantial insights are to be gained.
The Ethical Considerations Of Big Data: How Can It Be Used Productively To Help People In Need?
It’s an ethical dilemma – should governments be allowed to use big data to target specific individuals? It’s a tricky issue, and one that everybody needs to consider very carefully.
In the case of suicide searches, for example, targeting individuals simply isn’t practical or desirable.
The sheer number of suicide-related Google searches in America equates to millions of potentially targeted individuals every month, which wouldn’t be feasible.
Furthermore, it would almost certainly represent an invasion of privacy on a massive scale.
However, that’s not to say that big data doesn’t have its uses in situations like these.
On a regional level, Big Data has shown correlations between online searches and the likelihood of subsequent action.
Therefore, when used appropriately with the right intentions it can prove beneficial in providing prevention services or disseminating informative messages at state or municipal levels – such as through radio and television commercials about where to get help if needed.
Ultimately, governments shouldn’t use big data as a tool for individual targeting.
But with the right intentions and clear objectives in mind, it shows great potential when used correctly on a local scale.
Wrap Up
The book Everybody Lies sums up to a key message – don’t believe all the surveys, because people are likely to lie or omit the truth when asked.
This skews our understanding of the world and won’t give us the accurate information we’re looking for.
However, through big data such as Google searches, we can spot patterns in human behavior and gain insight into preferences we never knew before.
The actionable advice is that if you have kinky sexual fantasies, don’t fret – you’re not alone.
Even though some may be too worried to admit it, there is definitely someone out there who feels the same way you do.
Instead of concealing your desires, make them a topic of conversation – this has potential to normalize some aspects of human behavior which are often unspoken about.
