A New York Times Bestseller An audacious irreverent investigation of human behavior-and a
first look at a revolution in the making Our personal data has been used to spy on us hire and
fire us and sell us stuff we don't need. In Dataclysm Christian Rudder uses it to show us who
we truly are. For centuries we've relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study
human behavior. Today a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online
researchers can finally observe us directly in vast numbers and without filters. Data
scientists have become the new demographers. In this daring and original book Rudder explains
how Facebook likes can predict with surprising accuracy a person's sexual orientation and
even intelligence how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests and why
you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word
through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows
how people express themselves both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you
can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon &
Garfunkel? (Hint: they don't think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration
over time showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities
across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where
these explorations are possible. Visually arresting and full of wit and insight Dataclysm is a
new way of seeing ourselves-a brilliant alchemy in which math is made human and numbers become
the narrative of our time.
