Facebook is undeniably a versatile tool for many of its users: it helps them stay in touch with family, friends and “friends,” functions as a sort of journal, and provides an easy form of entertainment and distraction during the working hours – I mean, not during the working hours.
And now, there is another use for Facebook: personality profiling.
In case you somehow are unaware of this, using social media for profiling is not new. Everyone judges those tacky photos, preachy messages, and those egocentric statuses. While such messages are (hopefully) not entirely true representations of the inner workings of your mind, there is one thing on Facebook that allegedly provides real insight into your personality: that would be your Facebook likes.
In a recent study that was published in PNAS, what we “like” on Facebook can generate predictions of our personality that are more accurate than predictions from friends, family, colleagues, and in certain cases, spouses.
According to Entrepreneur, the study was done by having over 86,000 participants answer a 100-item personality questionnaire. The results from 90 percent of the volunteers were then fed into a computer algorithm, as long with their corresponding Facebook likes. Once the computer had drawn “links” between certain types of likes and traits such as conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, the computer then predicted personality results for the remaining 10 percent of the participants. The results were striking:
- With just 10 Facebook likes, the computer’s personality predictions were more accurate than those of a work colleague.
- Give it 65 likes, and the computer could beat a roommate or friend.
- Roughly only 125 likes are needed for it to beat a family member.
- Finally, the computer would need about 300 likes to best a husband or wife.
All things considered, there seems to be a telling connection between a person’s Facebook’s likes and their real personality.
Putting it mildly, these results are both strange and disturbing to the average Facebook user. But for employers, it is a possibility for a new method to asses candidates’ personalities. As Michael Kosinski, one of the study’s authors, stated: “Now we know it’s better to look at your Facebook likes than to invite you in for a lengthy interview and ask you to fill out a questionnaire – a process that’s not just expensive, but very cheating prone.” All this comes at a time when personality is being considered ever more salient in the recruiting business, although, it has remained one of the toughest traits to measure.
While Kosiniski sees recruitment as likely being the most affected are by the study, it will certainly not be the only one. One such potential area is online dating, since it has pretty much become a standard to ask people how accurate their online profile is (particularly in regard to profile pictures). Probably even more obvious is the potential for marketers. Because personally is a determining factor in how we respond to different marketing strategies, many companies (including Facebook) would consider accurate personality predictions a golden ticket.
If the thought of companies being able to accurately predict your personality doesn’t disturb you, then you are on a similar brain wave with Kosinski: he believes that ultimately, people will choose to share all their information with companies in order to have a more tailored experience on social media (i.e. more customized newsfeed stories, more tailored advertisements such as job notices. etc.). But for some, it might feel akin to being stalked or “watched” by machines, like something from a futuristic movie.
So, next time you go to “like” your friend’s new profile pic, or another Spongebob meme, just remember: your like might say more about you than you think. It might be hard, but try refraining from liking every hipster cat meme. Or those gifs like:
You might not want to know what those say about you.
Source: Entrepreneur via Fortune