Reviews - Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

664 reviews for:

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

Steven Pinker, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

3.82 AVERAGE

664 reviews for:

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

Steven Pinker, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

3.82 AVERAGE

ptimsin's review against another edition

3.75

informative reflective medium-paced

lisa_richter's review against another edition

4.0

This book appealed to my data-loving Econ geek side. Although I don’t agree with all the methods and conclusions, it is very interesting to me how new data sources can be analyzed to learn unexpected things.

kahawa's review against another edition

4.0

I don't know if this was revolutionary or not, it seemed like a rehash of many books going around - what we can learn from big data. Some of it was random cool facts. Some of it invites big questions for our future as a species. I think big data might be the next major revolution, in the lines of the printing press, radio, television, and the internet. It's already playing a big part in business decisions, policy making, medical practice, sports, and many other fields, but most of us are unaware of it. I think Everybody Lies is a good introduction and overview of the topic, but I do think the author places too much trust in people's honesty with Google searches. He sounds like he thinks he's found the golden egg of psychology, but it's naive to think that people even know themselves well enough or act consistently enough when making online searches, such that we could understand the core of the human psyche. For now, though, big data can squeeze billions of extra dollars out of economies, and for that alone it will never go away.

alwayslol's review

5.0

This is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time. The data and conclusions from the data is just fascinating. I will be thinking about this one for a long time. Most highly recommended!

jnieto's review against another edition

4.0

A good (and funny) overview of where so much data can be of use. For example, data can allow social sciences to become scientific ;-)
Good explanation of experiments that can prove causality (randomized experiments) and why many dimensions and no clear reasoning can find nonsensical correlations.
My advice: read it until the conclusion. ;-)