
Facebook Data Team: Relationships and Happiness - alexandros
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=304457453858
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adamsmith
I'm surprised they didn't remind the reader of 'correlation is not causation.'

I would have liked to see time domain analysis -- so when a person goes from
'single' to 'in a relationship' does one see a pop in happiness? Is it
sustained?

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mrshoe
They should use the same data to make a followup post which states that happy
people are more likely to find a partner or that sad people have little chance
of ever getting married.

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Towle_
"We already have methodology for measuring the happiness of Facebook users: by
considering how many positive words people use in their status updates (see
the USA Gross National Happiness Index). _This method allows us to see whether
a person's Facebook relationship status affects how positive and negative they
are._ " (from post, emphasis mine)

No it doesn't. Correlation vs. Causation.

Counter-example: assume these two men (simplifying to single and non-single
categories) are equally happy in real life:

Singles' non-relationship status updates: "Jeff is psyched for his Super Bowl
party!" vs. Non-singles' non-relationship status updates: "Tony is psyched for
his Super Bowl party!" Comparison by Fb methodology: equal happiness level

Single's relationship status updates: [non-existent] vs. Non-singles'
relationship status updates: "Tony loves his super awesome girlfriend
Melissa!!! Sweetheart, you're the bestest gf evarrrr!!!1!" Comparison by Fb
methodology: Tony seems happier.

Conclusion: obvious nonsense. Somebody tell these guys to take a stat class.

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badave
She probably is, she's just an intern.

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dangrossman
So, to optimize for positivity, be in a relationship but don't get married.

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mrshoe
Doesn't the article contradict this strategy? FTA: _People who are in a
relationship seem less happy compared to married folks_

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iBercovich
With the massive amount of relational data being created in social networks,
there is a huge opportunity in the field of analytics. This particular min-
study shows trends in happiness vs relationship status, which could be used
for a dating site/app spin-off. In a similar manner, analytics can be used to
improve media consumption (video, sound, image, text)-- content aggregation is
no longer feasible because too much information is being created everyday, so
we must find a way to reduce SNR and provide the user with what he/she needs
to see.

I am really excited to see many analytics-oriented startups in 2010.

-Ivan

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contagionhealth
Agreed. I would recommend friends pursuing an MBA go for a masters degree or
PhD in behavioral economics instead. In addition, I'd like to see more
analytics oriented around the individual's own delta - how many times did they
switch from "complicated" to a relationship in a 5 year period? How many
friends did they add? How many people did they block? A more realistic measure
of personal happiness might be obtained by more robust analysis of how a
person's self reporting changes over time, rather than a static snapshot of
how they report at a simple point compared with how many other people report
that same thing in stasis.

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_delirium
One thing I'd like to see more on these kinds of data-mining analyses are some
sort of error bars, variances, etc. They tend to just report group averages,
like A=5, B=2, but there's a big difference between (using, say, 1 stddev as
the bracket), A=5 +/- 1, B = 2 +/- 1, in which case they really do seem to
differ, and A=5 +/- 15, B = 2 +/- 25, in which case you've got mostly noise.

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ytinas
I recall reading a study about happiness somewhere years ago [1] that showed
people's happiness generally doesn't change that much. It reacts temporarily
to positive/negative effects but then tends to go back where it was.

[1] I think it was probably a critique of this article:
<http://www.nber.org/papers/w10499>

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kscaldef
It's worth pointing out that the 4 graphs on the page have different
normalizations, which makes naive comparisons between them misleading.

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tokenadult
Did Facebook ask me if I would be happy if they did this kind of data-mining
on my status updates?

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houseabsolute
They don't have to ask you since you already gave them permission.

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tokenadult
References for that, please?

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houseabsolute
From the Privacy Policy § How We Share Information:

> To help improve or promote our service. Sometimes we share aggregated
> information with third parties to help improve or promote our service. But
> we only do so in such a way that no individual user can be identified or
> linked to any specific action or information.

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notatoad
that's a rather odd way of reporting numbers. "negative 5% more positivity
than average." wtf?

~~~
houseabsolute
There's definitely a problem with the readability of the graphs in particular,
and with some of the sentences in the summary.

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tpyo
People in an open relationship are less happy. Why?

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Towle_
Because most people who declare themselves to be in an open relationship on Fb
aren't in an open relationship. It's most often done just for the sake of
being silly or telling everyone who your "BFF" is. The latter is more likely
the closer you are to being a 16-year-old girl.

~~~
badave
But why would that correlate with "negativity" across a subsection of people?

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greenlblue
Facebook has no shame. This is a complete ripoff of okcupid analysis.

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Zilioum
Yeah, great example of how facebook does not understand privacy. Why should I
care if its anonymous or not, I dont want them to be even able to find out
that kind of stuff about me!? It's like they dont even understand how far
reaching this is; their finding out about the happiness of millions of people
and they disguise it at as some kind of "V-Day Trivia". This shit creeps me
out.

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houseabsolute
It's fairly easy to deactivate or delete your account. Account > Account
Settings > Deactivate Account. To preempt any objection that you want to be
able to use Facebook, you just _also_ don't want them to analyze your status
updates: that's nice, but they are not willing to offer you service on those
terms. I guess it's fine to complain about it in hopes that something will
change, but the winds are not blowing in that direction, Mr. Quixote.

~~~
bootload
_"... It's fairly easy to deactivate or delete your account. Account > Account
Settings > Deactivate Account. ..."_

Is all the data deleted? cf: Eben Moglen ‘Freedom in the Cloud’~
<http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338>

~~~
houseabsolute
I think they actually make an attempt to do so when you delete (not
deactivate) your account. However, this goes beyond the promises they make to
you in their Terms of Service and beyond, in my opinion, any moral duty they
have to their users.

~~~
bootload
_"... I think they actually make an attempt to do so when you delete (not
deactivate) your account. ..."_

Facebook has repeatedly removed services [0] that allowed you to remove all
traces of your account via the API ~
<http://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+suicide>

[0] Cnet, Rafe Needleman, "Facebook cuts off Suicide Machine access"
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-19882_3-10424683-250.html>

