Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking) - Hardcover

Rudder, Christian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345812581 ISBN 13: 9780345812582

Publisher: Random House Canada, 2014

Synopsis

Provocative, illuminating, and visually arresting, Dataclysm is a portrait of how big data reveals our essential selves—and a first look at a revolution in the making.
     
   What is the secret to a stable marriage? How many gay people are still in the closet? Do we truly live in a postracial society? Has Twitter made us dumber? These are just a few of the questions Christian Rudder answers in Dataclysm, a smart, funny, irreverent look at how we act when we think no one's looking.
     
   For centuries we've relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers and without filters. Data scientists can quantify the formerly unquantifiable and show with unprecedented precision how we fight, how we age, how we love, and how we change. Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don't need. InDataclysm, Rudder uses it to show us who we are as people. 
     
   He reveals how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person's sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more job interview requests; and why you have to have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? Hint: They don't think about Simon & Garfunkel. Rudder also tracks human migration in real time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible.

About this title

About the Author

CHRISTIAN RUDDER is cofounder and president of OkCupid and the author of the popular blog OkTrends. He graduated from Harvard in 1998 with a degree in math and later served as creative director for SparkNotes. He has appeared on NBC's Dateline and NPR's All Things Considered and his work has been written about in the New York Times and The New Yorker, among other places. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345812581
• ISBN 13: 9780345812582
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272