What/who it’s for/context: This is vaguely sociological, in that is describes human behavior, but this is focused on a field that many people care about very much yet have very little data about: dating. If you enjoyed The Signal and the Noise or Nudge or Predictably Irrational, then you’ll likely enjoy this. It uses dating as a canvas, but my understanding of the book is the core ideas are about interpreting data and observing behavior, and data is simply the context used to explain these things. So to be clear: it isn’t really a book about dating; it is about data. It is a fascinating look at how people actually act. Notably, it is from an era before Tinder exploded in popularity and changed the habits of daters, with most of the data gathered from about 2005 to 2014.
Why/my thoughts: While the factoids are interesting, I think that the biggest takeaway from this book is (simplified): look at what people do, not what they say. The fact that people are not always honest is a great lesson that can be applied to many areas of life.
Other notes: Many sections of the book are based on old blog posts which are not longer accessible from OkCupid, presumably taken down when Cristian Rudder sold/left OkCupid as a part of the new leadership managing their image/optics (because users don’t generally like to be reminded that their data gets analyzed). Much of the content has been archived and is still accessible, so if you want a 5-minute sampling of what the topic of this book is like, you can see some of that here: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking) by Christian Rudder
What/who it’s for/context: This is vaguely sociological, in that is describes human behavior, but this is focused on a field that many people care about very much yet have very little data about: dating. If you enjoyed The Signal and the Noise or Nudge or Predictably Irrational, then you’ll likely enjoy this. It uses dating as a canvas, but my understanding of the book is the core ideas are about interpreting data and observing behavior, and data is simply the context used to explain these things. So to be clear: it isn’t really a book about dating; it is about data. It is a fascinating look at how people actually act. Notably, it is from an era before Tinder exploded in popularity and changed the habits of daters, with most of the data gathered from about 2005 to 2014.
Why/my thoughts: While the factoids are interesting, I think that the biggest takeaway from this book is (simplified): look at what people do, not what they say. The fact that people are not always honest is a great lesson that can be applied to many areas of life.
Other notes: Many sections of the book are based on old blog posts which are not longer accessible from OkCupid, presumably taken down when Cristian Rudder sold/left OkCupid as a part of the new leadership managing their image/optics (because users don’t generally like to be reminded that their data gets analyzed). Much of the content has been archived and is still accessible, so if you want a 5-minute sampling of what the topic of this book is like, you can see some of that here: 1, 2, 3, 4.