
What Our Digital Footprint Says About Us - yarapavan
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/what-digital-footprint-says-about-us
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joshelway
The way we each approach and interact with social media does say a lot about
us. However, as in my case, and im sure others here would agree, I generally
prefer to not interact with social media by actively liking or sharing things.
I merely observe, I use the social media tools that allow me to connect and
reconnect with others, but I believe that the onlooker or the analyst that
tries to derive information from my likes and dislikes, will ultimately come
out empty handed. So this indeed says a bit about me, but I may be entirely
different from another fellow "observer" of social media who also doesn't
actively like or share.

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caseysoftware
It's trivially easy. I built a _simple_ proof of concept a last month with ~30
lines of code:

[http://caseysoftware.com/blog/social-apis-for-social-
evil](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/social-apis-for-social-evil)

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santaclaus
> Sorry, we are unable to generate a prediction. An insufficient number of
> your Likes match with those in our database, and we don’t believe in
> guesswork.

Huh. I click like a lot on Facebook, I wonder what throws their algorithm off.

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toothbrush
> First of all, just being on social media, I believe, makes people happier.

Um, no. [http://uk.businessinsider.com/social-media-use-can-
contribut...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/social-media-use-can-contribute-
to-anxiety-and-depression-2015-6?r=US&IR=T)

> The same instincts drive us to read celebrity magazines and watch soap
> operas.

Wait, what?

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gohrt
The whole linked site --
[http://applymagicsauce.com/](http://applymagicsauce.com/) just seems deeply
unethical for a University, regardless og where it sits on the spectrum of
[abuse of human research subjects] to [selling snake oil]

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ilyaeck
Took the test on the website. The results are so off. It couldn't even predict
my gender, not to mention other traits. If that website actually reflects
their method, it is ridiculously overclaimed.

~~~
methou
My guess is that they just don't have enough data to do very good clustering.

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ux-app
> Facebook serves one of our most basic instincts: to socialize, gossip, and
> feel needed

I've never had a social media account. Feels strange that I seem to be missing
a "basic instinct". Not sure what to make of this.

~~~
jfoutz
Many things serve those instincts, like friends, family, hacker news. You're
getting your needs met via other sources.

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OliverJones
Heh heh. So wrong. I'm no androgynous 27-year-old.

~~~
jhaglund
I'm not conservative, 26, or female.

It also says I'm smarter than just 49% of the population, while IQ tests say
at least 80%. Maybe I'm just good at taking tests and Facebook is the real me?

