Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves-a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.Ĭhristin Rudder's OK Trends blog featured lots of analytics news you can use, or at least imagine using. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible. 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? ( they don’t think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. 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. In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook 'likes' can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person’s sexual orientation and even intelligence how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests and why you must have haters to be hot.

Data scientists have become the new demographers. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are.įor centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don’t need. Audacious, entertaining, and illuminating, Dataclysm is a portrait of our essential selves-and a first look at a revolution in the making.An audacious, irreverent investigation of human behavior-and a first look at a revolution in the making

He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word through Google Search, examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter, and traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. Drawing on terabytes of data from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, OkCupid, and many other sites, Rudder examines the terrain of human experience. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder puts this flood of information to an entirely different use: understanding human nature. Big Data is used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us things we don't need. An irreverent, provocative, and visually fascinating look at what our online lives reveal about who we really are-and how this deluge of data will transform the science of human behavior.

Dataclysm by Christian Rudder