When we want to figure out where to eat, what to see, or the answers to our embarrassing questions, we turn to Google. Seth Stephen Davidowitz, a former data scientist for the search engine, explains how our search history reveals more about us than we know.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. On the latest episode of NPR’s Hidden Brain, he shares the surprising connections he’s found from analyzing our online data—which often tells a different story than the self-reported numbers and surveys. It’s allowed him to make certain predictions; for instance, the percentage of American men who are gay, or parents’ unconscious biases towards girls.
“I think there's something very comforting about that little white box that people feel very comfortable telling things that they may not tell anybody else about: Their sexual interests, their health problems, their insecurities. And using this anonymous aggregate data, we can learn a lot more about people than we've really ever known,” he said.
Listen to the full episode, here.
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