Science can predict your personality based on what music you like
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Science can predict your personality based on what music you like

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We all know that there’s some dodgy stuff going on with companies using our personal Facebook data to target marketing to us. But, according to a 2015 study by Stanford University and Cambridge University, they can also now determine personality traits, in a highly creepy way. 

Apparently, if you’re a fan of the Smiths, Bring Me The Horizon or Escape The Fate, you’re very likely to be considered neurotic. Tom Waits and Bjork fans are very “open” people and Minecraft “likers” are far less conscientious than those who “like” hiking and cooking. The studies also predicted that if you like Marilyn Manson you’re going to be highly disagreeable and Cheryl Cole fans are not open people at all. 

The scariest part of this all is? That a company called Cambridge Analytics used the data of 50 million Facebook users to develop a program that then used this information, without anybody’s consent, to determine a behavioural type. They sold this behaviour/personality template as a marketing tool for targeting voters in political campaigns: most infamously, Trump’s 2016 campaign. 

Cambridge Analytics verified their behavioural theories using previous studies made by the reputable Stanford and Cambridge universities, who collected their data consensually via an app called MyPersonality, which surveyed 70,000 users, and their friends. 

It really makes you wonder how “private” those privacy settings on your Facebook page really are, and if it’s maybe time to just delete it all together.