Facebook remained a powerful force in social media in 2014 and contributed job growth to the global economy. It is probably not unheard of nowadays that most people have an account with the platform and use it for professional or personal reasons.
Whatever the scenario may be Facebook is a social channel that is gathering data from its billions of users to advance its efforts. A new paper published by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States through the use of a computer model can predict your personality type from your Facebook Likes.
Something as innocuous as your Facebook Likes could in fact determine your personality type? The research certainly seems to suggest there is substantial and quantitative evidence that it is quite possible. Considering the level of activity, engagement and usage nothing can be ruled out.
To arrive at this model three researchers (Wu Youyou, Michael Kosinski and David Stillwell) explained that in order to measure the model's accuracy they compared its verdicts to the subjects' ratings of their own personalities, according to a New York Times blog.
So the result was that the inclusion of Likes computers are far better at assessing human personality by the likes of an average co-worker, the average friend and even the average spouse, according to researchers.
What the study did take into careful consideration was the conception of personality and the researchers utilized a five-factor model that examines traits like extroversion and neuroticism.
Facebook has been known to prowl unethically around the use of privacy data from its users and is always subject to scrutiny. There is a tendency by some of trying to game social media metrics and specifically by purchasing Facebook Likes. Considering these practices are condemned and discouraged thankfully there are enough ways to determine when engagement is organic and authentic.
So the use of this research and data could be meaningful in a number of areas. It could be used in some employment scenarios like matching a candidate's personality type with a specific job position. The heart of the matter is it is still early to say if this will become a norm and a requirement.
A couple of years there was plenty of controversy when some employers where requesting prospective employees for access to their Facebook accounts. This prompted legislative action in several states to ban the practice and give him or her the ability to refuse handing over such information.
So the study may not seem harmful in determining your personality from just measuring the pages you Like. However, the issue at hand is of course is the right to privacy and factoring in your social media profile for an eligible job position is far from a done deal. This has to be further developed and include more additional research before putting into practice. There are still a number of people who may not have a Facebook account and may just have the right qualifications-not to mention the personality type that meets the demands of the job.