Assignment 6

For this assignment I chose to use the Wolfram Alpha program on my Facebook profile to see what kind of data it could produce from it.

Some of the information it gathered was more obvious, for instance that I currently live in Tampa and that I'm 21 years old. However the data that it gathered from my friends list was very interesting. It revealed the average age of my friends list (26), that most of my friends are women, that most of them are in relationships, and that with the exception of four people, most of my friends are mutual friends. If a company were to use my Facebook page to try and market to me, they would likely be able to appeal to most of my friends list as well.

Another insight the program gave me was that it noticed I rarely tag anyone in any of the photos I upload. This can occasionally cause problems since I won't remember who was in the photos later on, or where I was when it was taken. It also noted that most of my posts had been made within the past few years-I hadn't really used Facebook until I started college.