Stephens-Davidowitz is particularly enthusiastic about the power of big data to challenge ‘conventional wisdom’, but too often his examples are contrived or naïve. Google searches for jokes plummeted in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, for example, demonstrating that laughter may not be the best medicine. I am reluctant to turn for revolutionary insight to someone who, prior to his research, believed that growing up in poverty rather than privilege offered a better chance of success in professional basketball because poor people have more ‘drive’. Certainly, Everybody Lies demonstrates the extent to which conventional wisdom can disguise structural inequalities. That, or the earnest authorial voice striving for the truth about the human psyche is itself a construction (or a lie?).

Everybody Lies orbits twin foci of racism and the sexuality. Both are rich subjects littered with salacious disclosures. You would really have to run the gamut of paraphilia not to blush at some elements of human sexuality illuminated by search data and nobody will be surprised by the fact that the United States exhibits a deep strain of racism and misogyny. But it is interesting to learn that internet searches for racist jokes are one of the stronger predictors of Trump support, and that there is a correlation between a higher unemployment rate and increased searches for pornography and ‘spider solitaire’. If nothing else, Everybody Lies offers fascinating insights into how we use the internet.