http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21699305
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/06/1218772110.full.pdf+html
I've been saving this for the Media Blog for awhile, because it illustrates the complexity of a large volunteering sample size might have on the results.
>They had 58,000 volunteers allow them to track their likes and compare the results.
That's a huge sample size!
They were 88% in guessing male sexuality, 85% in determining republican or democrat, and the highest was 95% in determining African American versus Caucasians.
However there was a correlation between Curly Fries and high intelligence, and people who liked the Dark Knight had fewer face book friends.
To me, this study is just all sorts of curiousness. I find it extremely difficult to take this seriously because they did not say how they measured intelligence or republican or democrat. Was it liking one thing? Numerous things? Everything at once? Or was it just subjectively sifted through, and people had to guess what they thought this person was according to what they liked?
The biggest thing I had to pick at though was the issue of 'likes'. Facebook is an extraordinary cultivator of quick-clicks of satisfaction. Like this, like that, like everything in sight. It's a fairly mindless process. So while these things claim to be accurate, the only way to verify is by asking the actual facebook volunteers. Who would respond to "So I hear you liked Shakespeare and Chopin. You're smart aren't you?" with
"Yup."
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/03/06/1218772110.full.pdf+html
I've been saving this for the Media Blog for awhile, because it illustrates the complexity of a large volunteering sample size might have on the results.
>They had 58,000 volunteers allow them to track their likes and compare the results.
That's a huge sample size!
They were 88% in guessing male sexuality, 85% in determining republican or democrat, and the highest was 95% in determining African American versus Caucasians.
However there was a correlation between Curly Fries and high intelligence, and people who liked the Dark Knight had fewer face book friends.
To me, this study is just all sorts of curiousness. I find it extremely difficult to take this seriously because they did not say how they measured intelligence or republican or democrat. Was it liking one thing? Numerous things? Everything at once? Or was it just subjectively sifted through, and people had to guess what they thought this person was according to what they liked?
The biggest thing I had to pick at though was the issue of 'likes'. Facebook is an extraordinary cultivator of quick-clicks of satisfaction. Like this, like that, like everything in sight. It's a fairly mindless process. So while these things claim to be accurate, the only way to verify is by asking the actual facebook volunteers. Who would respond to "So I hear you liked Shakespeare and Chopin. You're smart aren't you?" with
"Yup."
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