Everybody Lies: The New York Times Bestseller

The days of structured, clean, simple, survey-based data are over. In this new age, the messy traces we leave as we go through life are becoming the primary source of data.

When photographs were first invented, people thought of them like paintings. There was nothing else to compare them to. Thus, subjects in photos copied subjects in paintings. And since people sitting for portraits couldn’t hold a smile for the many hours the painting took, they adopted a serious look. Subjects in photos adopted the same look.

Numbers can be seductive. We can grow fixated with them, and in so doing we can lose sight of more important considerations.

You would show up, however, in an area’s depression-related searches

Preliminary evidence suggests that no part of the world has stumbled upon a diet or environment that drastically changes the physical experience of pregnancy.

At Google, major decisions are based on only a tiny sampling of all their data. You don’t always need a ton of data to find important insights.

Testing fills in gaps in our understanding of human nature. These gaps will always exist. If we knew, based on our life experience, what the answer would be, testing would not be of value. But we don’t, so it is.

When and where they search for facts, quotes, jokes, places, persons, things, or help, it turns out, can tell us a lot more about what they really think, really desire, really fear, and really do than anyone might have guessed.

But a moment’s reflection shows that the widespread use of porn—and the search and views data that comes with it—is the most important development in our ability to understand human sexuality in, well . . . Actually, it’s probably the most important ever.

Google can display a bias toward unseemly thoughts, thoughts people feel they can’t discuss with anyone else.