Seth Stephens-Davidowitz – Everybody Lies (2017)
Een mooie opsomming van (recente) inzichten uit de gedragswetenschappen (inclusief economie) die op basis van Big Data konden worden geïdentificeerd. De door de auteur beschreven casuïstiek spreekt ter verbeelding (e.g., pornografie), waardoor het boek makkelijk wegleest. Ook de grenzen en onwenselijkheden van Big Data worden aangestipt.
The anonimity of websites such as Google or PornHub allows us to finally see what people really want and really do, not what they say they want and say they do
There are four unique powers of Big Data:
- Offering up new types of data
- Providing honest data
- Allowing to zoom in on small subsets of people
- Allowing to do many causal experiments
If you’re going to try to use new data to revolutionize a field, it is best to go into a field where old methods are lousy
Newspapers, on average, tilt a bit left to give their readers the viewpoints they demand. There is no grand conspiracy. There is just capitalism.
"Great businesses are built on secrets, either secrets about nature or secrets about people."
The most important age in a man’s life – for the purpose of cementing his favorite sports team as an adult – is when he is more or less eight years old
Doppelganger searches zoom in on individuals and even on the traits of individuals, and are promising in many fields
Regression discontinuity: Anytime there is a precise number that divides people in two different groups, the outcomes of people very, very close to the cutoff can be compared.
Facebook employs social psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists to find what their numbers (i.e., the massive collections of clicks, likes, and posts) miss; they need small data as a supplement.
It took time for the natural sciences to begin changing our lives – to create penicillin, satellites, and computers. It may take time before Big Data leads the social and behavioral sciences to important advances in the way we love, learn, and live.