Now, you might read these questions and think they speak poorly of our democracy. To be more concerned about the color of someone’s tie or his skin tone instead of the content of the president’s speech doesn’t reflect well on us. To not know who John Boehner, then the Speaker of the House of Representatives, is also doesn’t say much for our political engagement.
I prefer instead to think of such questions as demonstrating the wisdom of our teachers. These are the types of questions people usually don’t raise, because they sound too silly. But lots of people have them—and Google them.
In fact, I think Big Data can give a twenty-first-century update to a famous self-help quote: “Never compare your insides to everyone else’s outsides.”
A Big Data update may be: “Never compare your Google searches to everyone else’s social media posts.”
Compare, for example, the way that people describe their husbands on public social media and in anonymous searches.
TOP WAYS PEOPLE DESCRIBE THEIR HUSBANDS
SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
SEARCHES
the best
gay
my best friend
a jerk
amazing
amazing
the greatest
annoying
so cute
mean
Since we see other people’s social media posts but not their searches, we tend to exaggerate how many women consistently think their husbands are “the best,” “the greatest,” and “so cute.”* We tend to minimize how many women think their husbands are “a jerk,” “annoying,” and “mean.” By analyzing anonymous and aggregate data, we may all understand that we’re not the only ones who find marriage, and life, difficult. We may learn to stop comparing our searches to everyone else’s social media posts.
The second benefit of digital truth serum is that it alerts us to people who are suffering. The Human Rights Campaign has asked me to work with them in helping educate men in certain states about the possibility of coming out of the closet. They are looking to use the anonymous and aggregate Google search data to help them decide where best to target their resources. Similarly, child protective service agencies have contacted me to learn in what parts of the country there may be far more child abuse than they are recording.
One surprising topic I was also contacted about: vaginal odors. When I first wrote about this in the New York Times, of all places, I did so in an ironic tone. The section made me, and others, chuckle.
However, when I later explored some of the message boards that come up when someone makes these searches they included numerous posts from young girls convinced that their lives were ruined due to anxiety about vaginal odor. It’s no joke. Sex ed experts have contacted me, asking how they can best incorporate some of the internet data to reduce the paranoia among young girls.
While I feel a bit out of my depth on all these matters, they are serious, and I believe data science can help.
The final—and, I think, most powerful—value in this digital truth serum is indeed its ability to lead us from problems to solutions. With more understanding, we might find ways to reduce the world’s supply of nasty attitudes.
Let’s return to Obama’s speech about Islamophobia. Recall that every time Obama argued that people should respect Muslims more, the very people he was trying to reach became more enraged.
Google searches, however, reveal that there was one line that did trigger the type of response then-president Obama might have wanted. He said, “Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our coworkers, our sports heroes and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform, who are willing to die in defense of our country.”
After this line, for the first time in more than a year, the top Googled noun after “Muslim” was not “terrorists,” “extremists,” or “refugees.” It was “athletes,” followed by “soldiers.” And, in fact, “athletes” kept the top spot for a full day afterward.
When we lecture angry people, the search data implies that their fury can grow. But subtly provoking people’s curiosity, giving new information, and offering new images of the group that is stoking their rage may turn their thoughts in different, more positive directions.
Two months after that original speech, Obama gave another televised speech on Islamophobia, this time at a mosque. Perhaps someone in the president’s office had read Soltas’s and my Times column, which discussed what had worked and what didn’t. For the content of this speech was noticeably different.
Obama spent little time insisting on the value of tolerance. Instead, he focused overwhelmingly on provoking people’s curiosity and changing their perceptions of Muslim Americans. Many of the slaves from Africa were Muslim, Obama told us; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran; the first mosque on U.S. soil was in North Dakota; a Muslim American designed skyscrapers in Chicago. Obama again spoke of Muslim athletes and armed service members but also talked of Muslim police officers and firefighters, teachers and doctors.
And my analysis of the Google searches suggests this speech was more successful than the previous one. Many of the hateful, rageful searches against Muslims dropped in the hours after the president’s address.
There are other potential ways to use search data to learn what causes, or reduces, hate. For example, we might look at how racist searches change after a black quarterback is drafted in a city or how sexist searches change after a woman is elected to office. We might see how racism responds to community policing or how sexism responds to new sexual harassment laws.
Learning of our subconscious prejudices can also be useful. For example, we might all make an extra effort to delight in little girls’ minds and show less concern with their appearance. Google search data and other wellsprings of truth on the internet give us an unprecedented look into the darkest corners of the human psyche. This is at times, I admit, difficult to face. But it can also be empowering. We can use the data to fight the darkness. Collecting rich data on the world’s problems is the first step toward fixing them.
5
ZOOMING IN
My brother, Noah, is four years younger than I. Most people, upon first meeting us, find us eerily similar. We both talk too loudly, are balding in the same way, and have great difficulty keeping our apartments tidy.
But there are differences: I count pennies. Noah buys the best. I love Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. For Noah, it’s Cake and Beck.
Perhaps the most notable difference between us is our attitude toward baseball. I am obsessed with baseball and, in particular, my love of the New York Mets has always been a core part of my identity. Noah finds baseball impossibly boring, and his hatred of the sport has long been a core part of his identity.*
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Baseball-o- Phile
Noah Stephens-Davidowitz