Study: Facebook likes predict intelligence, sexual orientation

Can what you like on Facebook predict your level of intelligence, your political persuasion, even your sexual orientation?

That’s what British researchers are saying. Researchers at the University of Cambridge looked at Facebook pages of 58,000 people over the course of 5 years. Subject gave the researchers full rein of their accounts and even completed online personality and IQ tests.

Now the results have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And the verdict?

“The best predictors of high intelligence include [likes for] Thunderstorms, The Colbert Report, Science, and Curly Fries, whereas low intelligence was indicated by [liking] Sephora, I Love Being A Mom, Harley Davidson, and Lady Antebellum.”  Read the report here to see the full results.

You have to be so careful how you use social media. You never know who is judging you and categorizing you, and where it might lead.

Meanwhile, Harvard University secretly searched emails of 16 deans to figure out the source of news leak about a student cheating scandal. That raises the question, where do your digital rights begin and end with your employer?

I don’t use any corporate email or company cell phone ever. I’ve never had an employer pager. It is my assumption that if I use any of their equipment, they have a right to see anything and I waive my right to privacy.

With anything you do, you’ve got to think that way. But it goes even further.

As an Android person, I was creeped  out to go to my gallery on my smart phone and find a setting where you can go to albums, locations, times, people, tags, and one that even shows every location where I took a picture, what date I took that pic and so on.

Again, you’ve got to remember, your stuff is being digitally snooped, categorized, and looked at. Be careful out there!