Every like counts. How often you like things on Facebook?

Likes are the currency of social networking: it gives you the ability to express your attitude about pictures and posts without writing text. Nowadays you even have different types of reactions — laughing, crying, etc. It is also the proxy of your recognition — who doesn’t like to have a lot of reactions on their last post?

You probably heard before that your likes can tell things about your personality or behavior. But do you have any idea how much? Cambridge Analytica was a huge scandal concerning the use of people’s information on social media to do targeted marketing analysis. Here are a few facts about the kind of information they could derive with about 68 page likes: — your skin color
- sexual orientation
- political affiliations
- religious belief
- alcohol, cigarettes and drug usage

Moreover, with 10 likes they could assess a person better than a coworker, 70 would be enough to outdo a friend, 150 your parents, and 300 your partner!

No need to panic though. Data (and likes) is just an extra aspect of your life and just like your bank account, car keys, or even that cute cactus in a vase on your desk, you just have to learn how to take proper care of it. Social networks these days have been putting a huge effort into making things more transparent and private. You can already go to your Facebook profile, for example, and choose who can see your page likes, your posts, profile pictures, etc. Maybe for your friends is okay, but for strangers, it’s not.

What is important is to understand which information you are giving away to the world! Are you unsure if some piece of information is valuable and should be better hidden? Let us know in the comments and our data team can answer your doubts!