Everybody Lies

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

By: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Steven Pinker - foreword

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveal about ourselves and our world - provided we ask the right questions.

By the end of an average day in the early 21st century, human beings searching the Internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information - unprecedented in history - can tell us a great deal about who we are - the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than 20 years ago seemed unfathomable.

Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender, and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn't vote for Barack Obama because he's black? Does where you go to school affect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives, and who's more self-conscious about sex, men or women?

Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential - revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our health - both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data every day, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.

WARNING: This audiobook contains explicit language.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Very good albeit overstated

This book is worth the time it takes to read it and to reflect on what the author is saying relative to big data. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. However, please be aware that the author greatly overstates his conclusions--I am making these statements from the position as a PhD trained research psychologist. It isn't until chapter 4 where you find a measure of restraint and balanced consideration of the topic. The title also overstates his conclusions and is seemingly meant to gain your attention so you read the book rather than being in authentic reflection of the thesis for the results. Despite my criticisms, I hope that you will take the time to read the book as it will inform both your behavior and the potential for big data within the social and behavioral sciences.

Everybody lies in one way or another

I thought this book did a great job of putting some real data behind something we all were thinking anyways... everybody lies.

It's almost shameful how humans can't help but to lie, and social media is a prime example. Hopefully this type of research is used to help humankind for the better, and doesn't become another tool for corporations to exploit human behavior.

Overall, I thought the book was great, easy to listen to, and definitely thought provoking. The narration wasn't the most impressive... sounded a bit too robot-like for my liking. And, for the record, some more time could have been spent on the conclusion. ;-)

Very interesting, but lots of talk about sex

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend, but warn them about all the time spent discussing sex related issues in this book.

big data is for everyone

it applies big data to things everyone enjoys and makes a truly entertaining and informational product.

Good read but not well balanced.

Good book and insightfull but the author is politically biased in his assumptions and insights.

You may want to get the Kindle version too

Fast, informative, good examples. I learned a lot about data science. I also learned enough about my fellow humans to make me uneasy. Therapists should just look at our browser caches before designing any therapy program!

If you're really into spreadsheets and tables, you're going to want to get the Kindle or paper version of the book. He does a decent job of describing the tables, but if you're a geek, you're going to want to see them. There is no whispersync version of the audio book, but I was able to follow along on my Kindle.

Also, I highly recommend you read the conclusion. It's funny, short, and very apropos of the subject!

Haven't read yet

Bought for husband. He seems excited about it. We'll see how it works out. Luck

Loved this book!

I enjoyed the humor within the book that connected to legitimate academic phenomena from psychology to public policy. Many smart insights into many different walks of life and very entertaining! Would recommend to everybody! Especially if you enjoy Freakonomics!

reality TV meets literature

struggled to finish, content focus was too salacious and did not have enough insight into themes not involving sex or politics

Great Book-Little too Casual

I loved the detail of this idea, but was not as impressed with the writing itself. It was very good, don't get me wrong, but it felt a little too casual. You broached some very taboo issues and I enjoyed the openness there, but, especially at the end, was not as impressed. You should rename your final chapter "epilogue." On the other hand, the detail and the apt descriptions that so marvelously painted a picture that helped me understand what big data-even though you said you weren't going to give a definition of it-is. You had great data and you presented it effectively.