內容簡介
結合了《精準預測》(The Signal and the Noise)充滿大量訊息的分析，以及《蘋果橘子思考術》(Think Like a Freak)有益的反傳統思維，本書看待巨量訊息的觀點既精彩又具啟發性且機鋒處處，它們能馬上為我們所用，並且讓我們重新認識自己與這個世界，還有，讓我們問對問題。
恐怖攻擊之後，人心的焦慮並沒有增加？
暴力電影放映後，犯罪率反而下降？
支持共和黨的地區，種族主義份子並沒有比支持民主黨的地區要高？
以上答案皆為”是”，是否讓你覺得不可思議？根據網路的巨量資料顯示，這些答案與我們所期待的完全相反，但卻是真實世界的反映。
在21世紀的今天，人類在網路上搜尋資料的每日平均容量，將累積到8兆GB。這個前所未有的巨量訊息，透露出我們的恐懼、慾望以及驅動我們的各種行為，還有我們在有意識與無意識中所下的決定。不管是深刻或平庸的議題，我們都可以獲取關於人類心靈的驚人知識，這是20年前的人們，完全無法理解的狀態。
無論從經濟、道德、運動、種族、性與性別，本書皆有精彩、讓人訝異且時而令人捧腹大笑的觀察與洞見，作者引用的全是來自巨量資料的世界。
你所上的學校對你日後人生的成功是否有影響？父母是否真的比較喜歡男孩？你如何打敗股市？對於性生活，我們說謊的比例有多高？性意識較強的到底是男人還是女人？
透過巨量資料，這些問題都可以幫助我們更了解自己與我們的生活，還有隱藏在我們內心的偏見。利用這些訊息，我們可以改變文化，還有我們害怕提起但其實對我們很重要的問題，這些問題包含了身體或心靈上的健康。巨量資料所產生的多層面的影響，將使你我以不同的角度看待世界。
Blending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our world—provided we ask the right questions.
By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of information—unprecedented in history—can tell us a great deal about who we are—the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.
Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?
Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.