Facebook is the most sophisticated social media site till date and it can be said that Facebook knows you better than anyone else in the world and hence your personality.A computer programming tool has been created by the researchers of Cambridge University which is able to produce a psychological profile based on Facebook likes of a particular profile. The tool is built with social media profiles and real psychological data from over 6 million people so the psycho – demographic predictions are more or less accurate. The best part is that, a user would not have to answer any questions for getting his psychological profile. In order to get an accurate test result, samples of data are sent anonymously. The online behavior research data is based on over 40 journal publications since the year 2011.
The application is named ‘Apply Magic Sauce’. You can get to know a rough estimate of your psychological characteristic details such as your political view, intelligence level, religious views, sexual preferences and life satisfaction level. Some psychologists consider conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, extraversion and agreeableness as the “Big Five Personality Traits” which could also be assessed and predicted by Apply Magic Sauce.
Simply, the app indicates what assumptions can be made from the personalized advertisements, i.e. what Facebook knows about the user. However though the estimates of psychological assumptions are considered as far better than that made by friends or family, sometimes it misses the mark. As for an example, renowned journalist Sophie Kleeman claimed that the app showed her as a 29 years old man in a write up on API. To get the psychological details, a user has to grant the API access to his or her Facebook account and the application will compare the user’s Facebook likes with that of the database of 6 million peoples. The app uses only your Facebook likes and no other data to draw a picture of your personality.
Deputy Director of Cambridge University’s Psychometrics Centre and also a researcher of the Apply Magic Sauce project, Doctor David Stillwell said in an interview to “Mail Online” that one of the secondary purposes of this psycho – demographic tool is to show what data is collected from the user’s social media behavior. Mail Online further quoted Dr. David Stillwell explaining that data is collected about us online from social media and predictions are also made and this is one of the challenges of our modern way of living. Moreover we don’t know what predictions can be made or rather is made from our social media behaviors. This app will let you know what Facebook thinks of you.
The app will only show you your psychological test result but it would not post anything in your Facebook wall or store your Facebook profile information. In order to offer a psychological assessment from the online behavior of a user, this app is marketed to businesses. We might see in near future that this app is used by police forces to monitor social media trouble makers before a extreme crime is committed.
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