People Lie, But Search Data Tell the Truth

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a former research assistant of mine, would not strike most people as a revolutionary. Yet in his new book “Everybody Lies,” he argues persuasively for a mutiny in social science.

The problem should be familiar to anyone who's followed political polling in the past few years, despite the successful predictions of Emmanuel Macron’s victory in France. Put simply, most people tend to lie on surveys and on social media, too. As a result, when we study people's responses to surveys or what they say on social media, we come up with a misleading picture.