Everybody Lies: My Critical Take on Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's Big Data Revelations.
Content warnings: Islamophobia, racism, shootings, sexual hygiene.
People lie all the time; this is why Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s 2017 book on ‘Big Data’ is called Everybody Lies. But through ‘Big Data’—things like Google Trends results, FaceBook statuses, and PornHub search demographics—he claims to have found the key to producing a more accurate grasp on topics like sex, prejudice, and more. He makes some big claims in the process, but he always backs up what he can with data gathered in his own research, presented in the form of graphs, charts, word clouds, and more. This sort of information can be critical to some: as Eugene L. Hall writes in his review of the book, “big data has the potential to provide insight into unspoken aspects of life that are salient to therapy” (“Stephens-Davidowitz, S. Everybody lies.” [JMFT]).
Stephens-Davidowitz presents his information very clearly in Everybody Lies. It is not given to us in a way that obscures the facts, nor does it use language that the layperson would be unable to understand; everything seems to click into place. One such instance can be found in Chapter 4, Part 2: “The Truth About Hate and Prejudice”, in which he analyzes Islamophobia following the mass shooting in San Bernardino in 2015. Through analyzing minute-by-minute search data on Google Trends, Stephens-Davidowitz finds that Islamophobic searches skyrocketed in the days following the attack (130). Not only that, though: he uncovers that then-president Barack Obama’s address—which had received praise from news media—caused Islamophobic searches to double “during and after the speech” (Stephens-Davidowitz, 131).
Source: Reuters, via VOA News.
In her review of Everybody Lies, Lisa Sussman calls the Internet “a unique stage on which to play out already well-established psychological phenomena” (“Everybody lies” [APS]). I agree with this view, as does Stephens-Davidowitz, but at times while reading I felt as though I was reading the thoughts of an outsider looking in. For instance, he describes women wanting to improve their vaginal odour as a “strikingly common concern” (Stephens-Davidowitz, 126). Granted, it may be due in part to such concerns being far more taboo (and thus, far less openly discussed) than the male counterpart (penis size), but I found myself stumped at Stephens-Davidowitz’s surprise. If he is so shocked by an extremely well-known construct of the beauty and wellness industry—one that has preyed on girls and women like me for decades, to the point where we are all hyper-aware of our odour—then how much can I trust him with the rest of what he is saying?
Works Cited
“2015 San Bernardino Attack.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_San_Bernardino_attack. Accessed 25 Nov 2025.
Although I do not love citing Wikipedia in school assignments, I felt as though it would be fine in this instance: I am only using it to give context into an event that is pertinent to the point I am trying to make, but that I would otherwise not be able to fit into my word count.
Farivar, Masood. “Attacks Against US Muslims Growing in Frequency, Violence.” VOA News, 17 Aug 2016, www.voanews.com/a/us-rising-islamophobia/3469525.html. Accessed 25 Nov 2025.
The image used in this article, displaying an actual anti-Islam rally from the year following the San Bernardino attack, is a perfect visual reminder of exactly the kind of hatred that was perpetuated at the time… and just how commonplace the people attending these rallies really were.
Hall, Eugene L. “Stephens-Davidowitz, S. (2017). Everybody lies: Big data, new data, and what the Internet can tell us about who we really are. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 352 pp., $27.99.” Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, vol. 44, iss. 3, pp. 556-557, 10 Jul 2018, https://doi-org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/10.1111/jmft.12325. Accessed via Wiley Online Library (uOttawa), 25 Nov 2025.
Hall’s review approach of Everybody Lies is from a family and marriage-oriented therapeutic angle, which… granted, is not really the angle I decided to take myself. Still, having an expert’s insights on the merit of Stephens-Davidowitz’s words was a boon I will could not pass up.
Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth. Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Reveals About Who We Are. Dey Street Books (HarperCollins), 2017.
Stephens-Davidowitz's book is the topic of my review. It is an informative book for the masses, focusing on "Big Data" and the baggage that comes with our Google searches and Facebook status updates.
Sussman, Lisa. “Everybody lies: Big data, new data and what the internet can tell us about who we really are, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. New York: HarperCollins, 2017, 338 pp.” International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, vol. 16, iss. 3, pp. 203-205, 10 Jun 2019, https://doi-org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/10.1002/aps.1612. Accessed via Wiley Online Library (uOttawa), 25 Nov 2025.
Psychoanalysis can take many forms and one of those is analysing one’s internalized biases (both racial and sexual). Drawing from a psychoanalytic expert’s observations of Stephens-Davidowitz’s work helped me wrap my head around my own thoughts on the book, and made putting them into words a lot easier.