What Facebook Can Reveal About Our Private Lives (With 78 Percent Accuracy)

Felix Gillette — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:05:32 -0400

The New York Times has a front-page story today, written by Steve Lohr, about the myriad threats to privacy in the digital age. Included in the article is an anecdote about a M.I.T. class project in which two researchers analyzed some 4,000 Facebook profiles of students, "including links to friends who said they were gay." According to The Times, the pair was capable of predicting "whether a profile belonged to a gay male," with 78 percent accuracy.

What else would a careful analysis of our Facebook pages reveal about our private lives with 78 percent accuracy?

An educated guess:

--our sports team affiliations

--vacation spot preferences

--our tendencies towards self promotion

--the Golden Girls character we most resemble

Observer » What Facebook Can Reveal About Our Private Lives (With 78 Percent Accuracy)

What Facebook Can Reveal About Our Private Lives (With 78 Percent Accuracy)