On Facebook, you are what you 'like,' study finds

[jsr]

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-facebook-likes-20130312,0,181730.story

On Facebook, you are what you 'like,' study finds
Researchers say they can tell a lot about people from their Facebook 'likes' – great for marketers but a worry for privacy advocates.
By Geoffrey Mohan, Los Angeles Times
9:25 PM PDT, March 11, 2013

Attention Facebook users: Do you "like" Mozart, science, "The Colbert Report" and curly fries? Chances are you've got a high IQ. Have you clicked the thumbs-up icon for Tyler Perry, Harley-Davidson and Lady Antebellum? Perhaps you're not quite as cerebral.

What you endorse on the popular social media website may say a whole lot more about you than you intended, researchers from the University of Cambridge in Britain have found. You may not think twice about your fondness for NASCAR, "The Bachelor" and Oklahoma State University, but those affirmations fit the pattern of a person who's conservative and less open to new things, they reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Even traits that users of social networks may not want to broadcast — including smoking behavior, drug use or sexuality — can be sussed out pretty accurately by their patterns of likes, the researchers found after combing through data from 58,466 Facebook members in the U.S. More than a quarter of regular Facebook users click the like button for content they find there.

The study's conclusions may send marketers deeper into the data mine and prompt some of Facebook's billion monthly users to adjust their privacy settings.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. My likes will confuse them

<----- not average user.

[Skittles]

2. I don't do facebook so they can f*** themselves

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Well, since many of the groups we cover

Are on Facebook, I need to.

It used to be you could follow without creating an account. But things like oh like the paper I write for.

[Skittles]

5. see how they rope people in?

f*** them

[Control-Z]

4. OMG!

They know I like my children's accomplishments and their wit. And The Rachel Maddow Show. Whatever will I do?

But, seriously. Didn't we all alrready know this?