Category: Facebook Memes

Using Big Data and Social Media to Predict Student Success

10/15/2014

The basic premise of this TED talk was that scientists can look at the data from Facebook about what you “like,” and then make predictions about you. In the case Golbeck presents, many smart people have “liked” curly fries from Arby’s. (I also happen to love them!) So, which came first? Do more smart people like curly fries? Or did one smart person, who hangs out on Facebook with people who also happen to be smart, like those curly fries, and then their smart friends saw their like, and liked also?

Jennifer Golbeck: The curly fry conundrum: Why social media “likes” say more than you might think

Do you like curly fries? Have you Liked them on Facebook? Watch this talk to find out the surprising things Facebook (and others) can guess about you from your random Likes and Shares. Computer scientist Jennifer Golbeck explains how this came about, how some applications of the technology are not so cute — and why she thinks we should return the control of information to its rightful owners.

I began thinking about big data, and predicting student success. It’s not just “evil corporations” who would have access to our data. What about the universities, or the government? The movie, Minority Report, was grounded on the premise of the government being able to arrest murderers, before they committed the crimes.

Let’s say a college, who has its students go “like” their Facebook page, could do a data analysis of all the students on it’s Facebook site. That school could then categorize their students into those who complete their degrees, and those students who fail out or quit. Maybe there is a certain pattern that successful students take, and a certain like pattern that unsuccessful students demonstrate. What if liking Starbucks was an indicator of student success (drink more coffee, study longer) and liking the local bar (take out stress, let’s go drink!) was an indicator of student failure?

It’s often been said that the SATs, the ACTs, or GPA do not adequately predict who is going to be successful in college. What if social media data patterns DO tell us who is successful or not?

To take it a step further, what if schools made it so part of your college application package was to HAVE TO like the college page? Then, the school could collect data about you… What if the school sees a pattern in your Facebook likes that is that of an unsuccessful student, and then never lets you in? What if you didn’t know your data was being used in that way? What if the data shows that minorities have patterns of unsuccessful behavior? Could social media data discrimination be the next big outrage?

Or, what if this data was put towards helping students already enrolled? If the college sees a students starting a pattern on Facebook that shows distress - end of the semester complaining, substance abuse, withdrawing from friends - what if the school then stepped in to intervene? Just like in 1997, when I was in undergrad, the Resident Assistants would report you to the student life department if they thought you showed patterns of failure (sleeping late, missing classes, drinking, filthy room, not showering), what if Facebook is now used to look for patterns?

The data is there. Big Brother is here. My question is, should we not let scientists analyze our data? I might be HAPPY if Facebook reported to the college that I was showing a pattern of failure I didn’t recognize myself, and then got me help. I might not be happy, however, if my Facebook showed a pattern of failure, and the school kicked me out, because I was no longer worth “the investment.”

What if my employer could analyze me to see if I was worth hiring? (WHOOPS! They are already watching you at work)

What if doctors could predict which patients would comply with their directives? (WHOOPS! Neuroscientists already can)

What if Target could predict I was pregnant, and then send me coupons? (WHOOPS! Target already figured out a teen was pregnant, before she told her dad)

Here are the top ten movies that predicted the future, before it actually happened.

Chilling, thought-provoking, and raises more questions than it answers. What if I applied to a college, and they told me, “We analyzed your social media patterns, and those patterns show you only have a 23% likelihood of achieving your degree. Therefore, you don’t get in.” What if I could be in that 23% who DID succeed? Shouldn’t I be allowed to try? Or does the college know IN FACT that I CAN’T be successful, and won’t let me waste my money? Or does the school let me in, and THEN use my data to shape me, mold me, personalize my education to MAKE ME a success? Who gets to decide - me, Facebook, or the university?

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Monkeys or Mankind? Who do you see in “The Experiment?”

4/1/2014

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There was a very popular post going around Facebook this week that generated a lot of comments. Check it out.

What was the thought process you had while reading this? Did you conjure up mental pictures of monkeys in a cage, or after a while, did you think about mankind? If you read the comments from the page where the picture is hosted, you can see some fascinating insights into what people think of when they see this picture.

First, there were people who took this at face value, and thought it was a real experiment. It's close enough to articles we've all read about animal research, or classes we took on psychology or science that we can picture the experiment actually happening. The experiment seems cruel, and unnecessary. People who dislike animal research are quick to condemn "the experiment" as cruel, instilling fear, and brutish. And really, it is a cruel experiment, in my opinion. But much of the animal research done in science and psychology has been cruel. What have we (man, scientists, or society) learned from these cruel experiments?

Here is one example of what seems to be a similar experiment, actually in the literature:

"Stephenson (1967) trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid manipulating an object and then placed individual naïve animals in a cage with a trained individual of the same age and sex and the object in question. In one case, a trained male actually pulled his naïve partner away from the previously punished manipulandum during their period of interaction, whereas the other two trained males exhibited what were described as "threat facial expressions while in a fear posture" when a naïve animal approached the manipulandum. When placed alone in the cage with the novel object, naïve males that had been paired with trained males showed greatly reduced manipulation of the training object in comparison with controls. Unfortunately, training and testing were not carried out using a discrimination procedure so the nature of the transmitted information cannot be determined, but the data are of considerable interest."

Sources:
Stephenson, G. R. (1967). Cultural acquisition of a specific learned response among rhesus monkeys. In: Starek, D., Schneider, R., and Kuhn, H. J. (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, pp. 279-288.

And do scientists continue doing cruel experiments, or do they learn from these experiments, and move on to something even more involved? One of the tenets of good science is that we build upon the research of others. Another tenet is repetition of experiments. How many times do you have to repeat this experiment to retain valid results? One criticism I often receive in biology class is during animal dissections. Students who don't like dissections say, "I'm not learning anything from this! It's cruel! All these fetal pigs (or rats, or frogs) died for nothing! (in the case of Anatomy and Physiology, the cats we dissected are collected from the animal shelters after they are put to sleep, and then preserved, so is it better that we use those animals to learn? That they did not die in vain?) Why can't we just watch a video?" I think it's an important curriculum decision in Biology. Do we keep dissecting frogs, just because that's what has always been done? (Hmmmm, another "experiment")

Did you see an allusion to the way religion has woven it's way through societies? People have been punished for certain religious beliefs, or for the lack of religious beliefs. One commenter said "Oh man, this reminds me of my work place!" Do you ever feel like you are surrounded by monkeys? Maybe you see superstition being "taught" through the experiment. An irrational fear that has no apparent purpose. Aspects of culture, civilization, religion, and evolution are unearthed, by a deeper inspection of "The Experiment."

Maybe you see "Monkey see, monkey do?" Maybe this post is meant to spur one to action, to think "out of the box," to question tradition, or to be brave. Should we resist the the urge to conform? Always, or just sometimes? Is there every happiness in conformity, or should you always buck the norms, throw tradition to the wind, and do your own thing, regardless of "being hosed?"

This morning, my son asked if he could take two toys to school. I asked him, "Does your teacher let you bring toys to school?" He said, "Well, only on Fridays. (it was Tuesday) And we aren't allowed to bring balls. Mr. Flinn says that bouncing balls in class breaks things." If you are the parent, what do you tell your child? Follow the rules? Break the rules? Why are there rules? Why do we listen (or not listen) to the teacher, or parents, or society's rules? If my son took a ball to class today, what might have happened? Maybe nothing. Maybe nothing would break, and my son would think the rules are stupid. Maybe he would bounce that ball, and something in class WOULD break, and then what? What did my child learn about rules then? How do we decide what rules count, and what rules should be challenged? What's good for one man, is not necessarily what's good for mankind. And what's good for one monkey, may make for monkey business in the larger monkey culture. Who decides?

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Using Big Data and Social Media to Predict Student Success

Monkeys or Mankind? Who do you see in “The Experiment?”

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