The Facebook like button was first released in 2009. As of September of 2013, a total of 1.13 trillion likes had been registered across the earth, according to OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder in his new book Dataclysm. Much has been written about how “likes” limit our social interaction or increase our engagement with brands. But these likes have another function, they’re becoming a source of data that will eventually tell social scientists more about who we are than what we share.According to a research group in the UK, it turns out that what people choose to “like” on Facebook can be used to determine with 95% accuracy whether they are Caucasian or African American, 88% accuracy whether they are gay or straight, and 65% accuracy whether they are a drug user, among other things. So what you post on Facebook may not give as true a signal of your genuine self as what you like on Facebook. Rudder writes:
“This stuff was computed from three years of data collected from people who joined Facebook after decades of being on earth without it. What will be possible when someone’s been using these services since she was a child? That’s the darker side of the longitudinal data I’m otherwise so excited about. Tests like Myers-Briggs and Stanford-Binet have long been used by employers, schools, the military. You sit down, do your best, and they sort you. For the most part, you’ve opted in. But it’s increasingly the case that you’re taking these tests just by living your life.”Is it possible that in the future your SAT score, personality, and employability might simply be predicted by all the data collected from your digital device use? I asked Rudder whether a person’s like pattern on Facebook could be used as a proxy for an intelligence or IQ score. He told me:
“I think we are still far away from saying with any real certainty how smart any one person is based on Facebook likes. In aggregate, finding out that people who like X, Y, Z, have traits A, B, C, D, I think we’re already there. We’re already tackling life history questions based on Facebook likes. For example, did your parents get divorced before they were 21, they can unlock that with 60% certitude. Given that it’s only a few years’ worth of likes, imagine that it’s in five or 10 years and there’s that much more data to go on, and people are revealing their lives through their smartphones and their laptops.”by Jonathan Wai, Quartz | Read more:
Image: Dado Ruvic
