Great book! Recommend to EVERYONE. Disheartening at times, but honestly, I expected the data to show things worse off.


"Why does this old woman's advice command such attention and respect in my family? Well, my eighty-eight-year-old grandmother has seen more than everybody else at the table. She's observed more marriages, many that worked and many that didn't. And over the decades, she has cataloged the qualities that make for successful relationships. At that Thanksgiving table, for that question, my grandmother has access to the largest number of data points. My grandmother is Big Data."

The author give a very general overview of what big data is capable of, and shows by example with several papers and own research.
The book is written a lightly manner, it isn't dense at all, sometimes even funny!
Thanks a lot for this book, it was great to read!
informative tense medium-paced

Content: 5, tone: 3. I'm sure this book has been compared to freakonomics many times (including within the book itself), and I realize there are a lot of issues with freakonomics. The type of information presented is just as fascinating to me as freakonomics was, however, from a tone perspective, it missed the mark sometimes. Seth went into this book inspired by and intentionally intending to make a book like freakonomics, and so at points there was a cockiness and a kind of smugness that I didn't feel in the previous book, although I might have missed it bc I was enjoying it so much. Maybe it's just bc the type of information isn't as new to me or maybe it's just him, but it could rub me the wrong way. Also, there were several statements that were judgmental just in the assumption that things were abnormal just bc HE hadn't heard about them before.

الكل يكذب: الكتاب الذي جعلني اقف مندهشاً من الحجم الكبير للاكاذيب التي نتداولها وجهاً لوجه نحن كبشر، جعلني اقف مندهشاً من الثقة العمياء التي نشأت بين الجنس البشري والانترنت(بالتحديد غوغل).
اصبح تحليل البيانات و المعلومات الرقمية هي الطريقة الوحيدة لفهم الجنس البشري والتنبؤ بما هو قادم وهذه هي الحقيقة السوداء.
في النهاية مازال الكل يكذب
funny informative fast-paced

I don't usually write reviews but if you like non-fiction books that change the way you perceive your world you're going to like this. Big data's insights on government, politics, medicine, and social habits are not only entertaining but have practical applications into individual's lives.

Sometimes the author could get a little repetitive, but I understand it was to emphasize a point. Overall, incredible read and I would highly recommend to anyone. You can learn so much; the assumptions I've had all my life were buried again and again.

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: I am that young person who is a bit confused on what I want to do with my life. But I have the skills, creativity, and curiosity. You have inspired me. Thank you.

I wanted to love this, but the audiobook felt kind of meh to me. There were moments where I thought it was really interesting (how Google used search data to predict the severity of flu season, how experts predict successful race horses, how Walmart predicted which grocery items were most purchased before a Hurricane arrived), but there were also large portions that felt obvious to me or like they were missing some important context.

I think he should've brought in a psychologist or sociologist to expand on some of the analysis he did (this was particularly necessary in a chapter where he discussed why men who grow up in middle-class families are more likely to make it in professional sports - I wanted badly for him to mention that they often have more free time to practice than those kids growing up in poverty, but he never did.). I also felt like some of his analysis was super binary (men vs. women, gay vs. straight), in a way that really simplified what could've been a more nuanced discussion of the data. I probably wouldn't read again.