Fruitless Searches

Abstract

The Internet provides a firehose of data that researchers can use to understand and predict people’s behavior. However, unless A/B tests are used, these data are not from randomized controlled trials that allow us to rule out confounding influences. In addition, the people using the Internet in general, and social media in particular, are surely unrepresentative and their activities should be used cautiously for drawing conclusions about the general population. Things we read or see on the Internet are not necessarily true. Things we do on the Internet are not necessarily informative. An unrestrained scrutiny of searches, updates, tweets, hashtags, images, videos, or captions is certain to turn up an essentially unlimited number of phantom patterns that are entirely coincidental, and completely worthless.