Tech Author: Christian Rudder, WTIA, Sept. 18

Tech Author: Christian Rudder, WTIA

When: Thursday, September 18, 2014, 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Where: Blucora | 10900 NE 8th Street, Ste. 800 | Bellevue

What: In Dataclysm, author Christian Rudder offers 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 employs the same analytic tools and style that I used on the blog, but it’s a work of much richer and sturdier stuff. The discussion is a lot broader, and I (try to) connect today’s data science with both established behavioral science and world history. OkTrends focused only on OkCupid. That was a great way to explore the human side of Big Data—it’s hard to find more “human” topics than sex and love. But for the book, I bring together data and research from all over the Internet, from Reddit, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so on. As for why I expanded a blog into a book, my inspiration was whatever pulls people up mountains or across seas or out into the dark woods when they know the ax murderer is out there, because they just saw him go. I couldn’t help myself. I had to see. I tried really hard to avoid the numerical dog and pony show that a book about Internet data could easily become. There are of course lots of interesting one-off factoids, a handful of which received their own page in this very press kit. But I mostly found what I (and probably you) have always known: that people are gentle, mean, stupid, horny, lonely, kind, foolish, shrewd, shallow, and endlessly complex. I felt the most honest approach was to show that complexity for what it is, not reduce it to sound bites. The story, the exploration, was the important thing to me, not the “takeaway.” Dataclysm’s central idea isn’t necessarily what we can see using Big Data; it’s the fact of the vision itself. That we can get real data on even the most private moments in people’s lives is an astounding thing. It’s like the second advent of reality television, but this time without the television part. Just the reality.”

A selection of findings fromDATACLYSM: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) by Christian Rudder
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• The top 1% of Twitter accounts has 72% of the followers. It’s much harder to attract a million followers than it is to make a million dollars!
• Asians tend to identify themselves by their country of origin, Latinos by their favorite kinds of music, and white people by the color of their hair and eyes.
• The more mutual friends a couple shares, the less likely they are to break up.
• Overall, men’s opinions of women’s attractiveness are remarkably fair—they form a nearly perfect bell curve. Women are much, much harsher when judging men on their looks.
• But when age is the variable under consideration, the harshness goes the other way: according to women, a man’s sex appeal hits a wall once he turns 40. According to men, women are over the hill before they can legally drink.
• There’s a surprising upside to having haters—it induces other people to like you more.
• The average word on Twitter is longer than the average word in Hamlet.
• Rationing notwithstanding, we talk more about red meat during world wars.
• What you “like” on Facebook can predict your age, your gender, your race—and even whether or not your parents divorced before you were 21.
• Smart people prefer curly fries—at least on Facebook.
• Being good-looking makes you more likely to get a date, but if you’re a woman, it also makes you more likely to get a job—even when the hiring manager is also a woman.
• You can gauge the health of a political movement by analyzing the language its core members are using on Twitter—when it’s negative, the movement is in trouble.
• Straight men describe the kind of partner they’re seeking in an online profile. Gay men talk about pop culture.
• About 5% of people are gay—and the proportion is the same across the entire country, from North Dakota to Massachusetts to Mississippi.
• Californians make eyes at one another at the gym. Rhode Islanders meet in parking lots.
• People shower more in New Jersey than in surrounding states. True to stereotype, Vermont is the home of the unwashed.
• If you’re looking for love, try Ohio. Prefer something more casual? Check out the West Coast.
• The better your profile picture, the more likely it is to be outdated.
• Using a flash in a snapshot ages you by seven years.

How Much:

• Event registration is free for members and includes a copy of  DATACLYSM: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking). 
• Nonmember price is $25 and also includes a copy of DATACLYSM: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking).

How: Register here.