Why the Facebook Experiment is Lousy Social Science
Facebook is grappling with its impact on our social and emotional lives — and that’s a good thing. But it has to get the research right. Why Facebook did the experiment, and how to make it better.
(I recently published a slightly more academic version of these arguments in Information, Communication & Society, which you are welcome to read. If you don’t have access to the journal, view the postprint manuscript.)
If you ever have a chance to visit Facebook’s headquarters, one of the things that will jump out at you are the posters. There are so many posters. In big, red all-caps, they practically yell at you from the walls. “PROCEED AND BE BOLD,” bellows one. “STAY FOCUSED AND KEEP SHIPPING,” shouts another. “MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS” is perhaps the most famous of these primal screams.
It’s all part of an open propaganda effort to keep employees on their toes, to keep the company’s hacker values in plain sight. It sounds hokey, and it sort of is, but it also feels empowering. “FAIL HARDER,” urges one, without caveat. Well, okay, if you insist.
One of the cool things about the mind control effort is that employees get to participate in it. And so if…
