Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
You can read more about his methodology in his papers here [1]. He wrote his PhD thesis on "Essays Using Google Data". I can't think of a better way to do these estimates with the limited data provided, but I'm just not convinced it's a strong enough proxy for the conclusions he's making.
I imagine you could just do the same searches in an Incognito browser window and get results not tailored to you, nor your location, IP, etc. (Or, I would be rather surprised if google searches were STILL tailored to some determinable attribute of you in an incognito browser window.)
I also imagine Seth did this (but only because I would be very surprised if he did not).
If you're worried about the foreign machine compromising your accounts, incognito mode will do nothing to help you.
In one study garbologists found that people uniformly underreported the quantity of junk food they eat, and overreport the amount of fruit and diet soda they consume. Most people also underreport their consumption of alcohol by 40 to 60 percent; on the other hand, heads of households regularly exaggerate the amount of food their families consume. [3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbology
[2] http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Lean+Cuisine...
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/05/books/we-are-what-we-throw...
See eg. David Spiegelhalter, Sex by Numbers: What Statistics Can Tell Us About Sexual Behaviour, chapter 3.
What comes to my mind when I read this is what the base rate of suspicious searches is. If 10% of days include at least one suspicious search in the base population, the value of such a search as evidence of malice is greatly reduced. But most people don't consider base rates.
On the topic of the differences in parents' concern for their boys vs their girls, for genius vs overweightedness, there's a simple rationale: for future career and relationship success, a boy's intelligence and a girl's looks are relatively more important than vice versa. It's not right or fair, but it's believed to be true, and that's what makes people search for it.
This was the most interesting takeaway for me. It's one thing to know that negative behavior is underreported on surveys, but much more valuable to draw potential conclusions about how the situation might be improved.
I was curious about this phenomenon and found many forum posts where straight guys say they've watched gay porn.
If your first response to that suggestion was visceral, maybe you actually have some aversion to the idea that you are. It makes sense, the world is easier for straight people, but it might bear closer examination.
(To any future employers, friends, clients, interlopers and all others who encounter this after getting to know me... None of this should terribly surprise you. ;) )
I say this because I too enjoy some porn that I thing I wouldn't want to participate in. I found it rather productive to consider what this means about me.
Likewise watching natgeo animals mating doesn't make someone a zoophiliac.
It is hard to talk about this because sadly 'you might be gay' is often read as an accusation.
A really good female friend of mine tells me she only watches lesbian porn. She's straight as far as I know.
That being said, I am definitely not gay and don't have any further desire to have sex with other men; what can I say other than human sexuality is complicated?
And yet I have never. Does this mean I am (on some ruler) "straighter" than you? (Not that I care, or think this matters.)
(I once discovered gay male porn on the parents' computer of a woman I once dated, while trying to fix it. Awkward...)
This could be done by setting up an ad campaign directed at gay people, but selling something innocent. Only people who searched for gay porn will see the ad, and so the third party can determine that those buyers have looked for gay porn.
Do you HN'ers generally consider DuckDuckGo to be trustworthy for search queries of a private nature?
In the US version of this article had a big focus on apparently secret attraction for overweight women. I wonder what the "darkest secret" is that pushed the author to focus on whether people are gay or not in the U.K.?
The search data is meant to support the accusations. A main point is that other methods of supporting such statements (like surveys) are unreliable.
> So nobody googles if their daughter is smart?
The article doesn't say that, it says parents are about twice as likely to google if their son is smart vs daughter.
> Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for cohesing in school and not getting bullied, for girls.
This seems like exactly the problem the author wants to bring up and address. Society values appearance above intelligence in women. This is apparently also true in how parents see their children.
The author doesn't draw conclusions about this prejudice, he is merely remarking that it exists.
Sure, parents who are interested in their children's well-being will also be interested in what society thinks of their children.
This data seems like a weird source for the claim, though; I'll bet the people searching the internet for "is my daughter smart" significantly outnumber the people searching for "is my daughter pretty".
But maybe the real question is, why aren't people asking "Is Reese Witherspoon's daughter smart?"
The author conclude that this mean there is a bias against girls.
Millions do. Just 2 times less millions that people who wonders if their sons are smart. Which was explained in depth in the article.
>Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for cohesing in school and not getting bullied, for girls. (...)
This sounds more like a "totally unsupported" claim that what the article suggests. And even if that was the case, it would show the same stereotyping done by the parents as the article already suggests.