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

In this groundbreaking work, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a Harvard-trained economist, former Google data scientist, and New York Times writer, argues that much of what we thought about people has been dead wrong. The reason? People lie, to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys—and themselves. However, we no longer need to rely on what people tell us. New data from the internet—the traces of information that billions of people leave on Google, social media, dating, and even pornography sites—finally reveals the truth.

Everybody Lies combines the informed analysis of Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise, the storytelling of Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, and the wit and fun of Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics in a book that will change the way you view the world. There is almost no limit to what can be learned about human nature from Big Data—provided, that is, you ask the right questions.