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659 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
659 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
This was a great book. It's very similar to Freakonomics, and the author references that book throughout, and even commented that it was an inspiration for this book. Comparing the two, I liked freakonomics a little better. I found that Seth Stephens-Davidowitz came off as a little too egotistic for me, and I found his research and topics less interesting that Steven Levitt's Freakonomics. Still, I think this was a solid book for anyone interested in data science, and likes counterintuitive and surprising answers to questions that at least get you to think.
When my nephew was 3 years old he found the word "poop" endlessly funny. Him and his friends would say "poop" to each other and burst out laughing. While I found hearing "poop" and giggles from a 3 years old cute, reading the same thing from an 'adult' was painful.
On top of the constant immature subjects, the book is also littered with snide comments. The author has a definite political agenda that should also not be brought in to 'scientific research' (or in this case pseudoscience since the way the data is presented and analyzed is not done or presented in a way that comes close to meeting the basics of scientific research).
The book is also very repetitive.
I really expected more from a book by someone who purports to have a research background and should know how to properly present data correctly, ethically, and in a professional way. Maybe after the author grows up his work will be worth reading, however at the moment it is not.
To me this book was basically poop, poop, poop.
On top of the constant immature subjects, the book is also littered with snide comments. The author has a definite political agenda that should also not be brought in to 'scientific research' (or in this case pseudoscience since the way the data is presented and analyzed is not done or presented in a way that comes close to meeting the basics of scientific research).
The book is also very repetitive.
I really expected more from a book by someone who purports to have a research background and should know how to properly present data correctly, ethically, and in a professional way. Maybe after the author grows up his work will be worth reading, however at the moment it is not.
To me this book was basically poop, poop, poop.
I'm a sucker for these types of books because I love tidbits of trivia and random knowledge. On top of that it was extremely readable, and I got through it super quickly. I'm biased and predisposed to like this "genre," but it was enjoyable.
My guess is that some of it will prove to not be true, or less prevalent, or whatever, but it is pretty insightful and clever.
Also appreciated the emphasis on biases and ethics.
My guess is that some of it will prove to not be true, or less prevalent, or whatever, but it is pretty insightful and clever.
Also appreciated the emphasis on biases and ethics.
Everybody Lies is a deeply analytical, and yet hilarious, look at what Internet users tell us through their behaviors, as opposed to what they might directly tell us if we asked them. Stephens-Davidowitz digs deep into Google search data and other large data sources to pull out surprising nuggets and trends from that data. Of course, there are always outliers (I swear, I was just doing research!), but the beauty of big data, in this case, is that outliers get drowned out by the signal.
Not all behaviors are so revealing. I have to admit I’ve added many books I aspire to read to my Goodreads “Want To Read” bookshelf, or perhaps even want others to think I'll read, but am actually quite unlikely to ever read. Case in point, Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville. Netflix queues/lists are notorious for being filled with documentaries that go forever unwatched. The behaviors to pay attention to are books read and movies watched. The types of books that are more likely to be started but never finished is another interesting area for research.
A few sections of the book are not only NSFW, but were a little uncomfortable for me to read on a plane with strangers at my shoulders. Internet searches tell us a lot about the true nature of people’s interest in racism and pornography. One of his more notable discoveries was the correlation between areas with high numbers of racist searches and areas in which Obama performed significantly worse than John Kerry. Having grown up in the South, I know how prevalent virulent racism remains there. So, it’s unsurprising to me that Internet searches tell us how deeply racist the South remains. But, Internet searches with geo-located IP addresses tell us that racists also span the country in large numbers, even in very liberal areas.
Not all behaviors are so revealing. I have to admit I’ve added many books I aspire to read to my Goodreads “Want To Read” bookshelf, or perhaps even want others to think I'll read, but am actually quite unlikely to ever read. Case in point, Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville. Netflix queues/lists are notorious for being filled with documentaries that go forever unwatched. The behaviors to pay attention to are books read and movies watched. The types of books that are more likely to be started but never finished is another interesting area for research.
A few sections of the book are not only NSFW, but were a little uncomfortable for me to read on a plane with strangers at my shoulders. Internet searches tell us a lot about the true nature of people’s interest in racism and pornography. One of his more notable discoveries was the correlation between areas with high numbers of racist searches and areas in which Obama performed significantly worse than John Kerry. Having grown up in the South, I know how prevalent virulent racism remains there. So, it’s unsurprising to me that Internet searches tell us how deeply racist the South remains. But, Internet searches with geo-located IP addresses tell us that racists also span the country in large numbers, even in very liberal areas.
Everybody Lies reads like a 2017 version of Freakonomics and it is clear that Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner were inspirations for Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (is it a prerequisite to be called Stephen or a variation of the name to write mainstream books about statistics?). Its methodology is sometimes shaky, but Everybody Lies often brings up interesting and counterintuitive facts.
informative
medium-paced
Some of this kinda missed me but it has a lot of interesting stuff in it. Recommendes just for the Google information and the Facebook evaluation
challenging
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced