Play Book Tag discussion

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are is a fascinating book. The cool thing about Big data is that it has the potential to answer really interesting questions, but only if you can figure out how to parse the data. Timing matters. One major premise to this book is that people won't always answer questions that you ask (or they won't answer them truthfully), so instead, you should look at the questions that THEY ask. The author analyzed the use of Google Search terms to find out what people want to know. The way in which they ask a question also reveals a lot. People might seem to be asking the same question, but small difference in wording or the order of words might be meaningful. For instance, when googling competing candidates, the order of the candidates (e.g. Trump v Biden or Biden v Trump) can tell you something. (I'm not sure this is as true now, simply because Trump has fascinated people for so long now - whether you love him or love to hate him - his name might come first even to haters.)

Two topics that get a lot of attention in this book are racism and sex. Most people won't admit to racist ideas (or interest in kinky sex topics) in a survey or questionnaire, but the questions they ask Google reveal their true feelings. The Author analyzed the use of racist terms and linked it to voting patterns. He said you could predict how states would vote based on geographic areas. Though you get more information if you target in on specific areas. He found that he was able to predict who would vote for Trump (4 years ago) based on the geographical concentration of racism. That might be really obvious to us now, but 4-5 years ago it wasn't as clear. If occurs to me that I should find the authors website to see what he predicts for this election. (But first I have to go vote.)

The book also looks at violence in many different ways to try to figure out the factors that can predict (or prevent) violence. Do violent films make people (or young males specifically) more violent? Surprisingly crime was LOWER on weekends in which there was a major release of a violent films. (One explanation is that they don't drink as much on nights they go to the movies.)

I listened to this book on audio, and I heard many really interesting ideas. The author presents a lot of data and interpretations very quickly, which gave me a scattered (ADHD) experience. I didn't always agree with the author's conclusions, but that was part of the fun of the book. It made me think - what else could explain that? I was also sometimes put off by his communication style, but I suspect younger people would enjoy it more. I have the book now, and I'm revisited ideas that intrigued me, in a more deliberate way, at a pace that I control.'

The books can present information visually as well, such as diagrams that show the words that people use most frequently. The words used by young men versus young women were very different. The book showed breakdowns by many different factors and this picture were enlightening.