Facebook is full of tools that claim to tell you about your personality. Obviously, most of them are crap. However, the University of Cambridge has created one that analyses your Facebook likes to reveal the kind of demographic information the company can learn about you.
Giving your information over to a big company like Facebook can induce a little paranoia. Worse yet, you probably don’t get much insight into what the social network can actually figure out with all that data. This tool, created by organisational behaviour professor Michal Kosinski for research, demonstrates some of the kinds of information that just your Facebook likes can reveal.
The information isn’t 100 per cent accurate, but it’s probably a little more detailed than one might expect. A basic analysis can show age, gender (shown as a psychological spectrum, not a binary flag), personality traits, political leanings and topics you’re educated in. Most of the information returned is displayed as percentiles (which means it may not be reflective of you specifically, but fits your overall psycho-demographic). While there’s not much you can do with it, it’s a handy way to get a quick glimpse into how the data-mining machines of social media view you.
Apply Magic Sauce [University of Cambridge via Design TAXI]
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