Have you ever wondered what your Facebook Likes say about you? As it turns out, a lot: Researchers at Cambridge and Stanford have created a computer program capable of predicting your sexual preference, personality, education level and more, simply based on the pages, celebrities, shows and brands you’ve chosen to Like no the social network. Now, for the first time, you can have that same program analyze your own Facebook Likes to see what they say about you.
The predictive program is named, curiously enough, “Apply Magic Sauce.” Researchers developed the program by comparing the Likes of over 85,000 Facebook users against a baseline personality survey and basic demographic information (i.e., age, gender).
A number of interesting trends were quick to appear. According to researchers, liking Thunderstorms, The Colbert Report and Curly Fries are all good indicators of high intelligence. If you like Jennifer Lopez, the study suggests you’re likely to have a lot of Facebook friends; those who like the In-N-Out Burger chain, meanwhile, are more likely to have fewer friends than average. The University of Cambridge computer program can even predict whether or not you’re likely to be a smoker based in part on your preference for Under Armour sports apparel (smoker) and the Sylvester Stallone movie Rocky (non-smoker).
Of course, you can’t read too much into only one or two Facebook “Likes.” The predictive computer program requires a sufficient number of Likes to predict with any level of accuracy. With 70 Likes, the program is better able to judge you than a friend or roommate; with 150 Likes, the program is better able to judge than a parent. And with the study average of 227 Likes, Apply Magic Sauce promises to know you better than anyone else save for your spouse.
Want to see what big data can predict about you? Good news – if you agree to give the University of Cambridge’s Apply Magic Sauce Prediction API access to your Likes, it’ll print out your own personalized prediction set and tell you a little bit about yourself. To get started, visit applymagicsauce.com.
[Facebook Like button keyboard via Shutterstock]
From Buster Chappell on January 14, 2015 :: 1:04 pm
I tried but couldn’t get past the Start button. Must be some technical glitch on their site!
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From Teawench on January 14, 2015 :: 4:08 pm
I couldn’t get past the start button, either. Too many people trying to use?
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