Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are

By Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

Categories: Computers & Technology, Politics & Social Sciences

Everybody Lies (2017, Dey Street) is economist and data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's argument that Google searches act as a digital truth serum, revealing what people hide from surveys, friends and even themselves. Using aggregated search data and other online sources, he examines racism, sexuality, mental health, abortion, parenting and politics, finding prejudices and anxieties that conventional polling misses. He also explains how big data can test long-held theories, and where its power to establish cause and effect runs out.

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• Bill Gates: “I read "Everybody Lies," by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, last summer, which is all about what internet data — and especially search engines — reveal about human behavior. ... It was super interesting”