Research

Personalized algorithms continue to play an increasingly important role in cataloguing, sorting, and presenting information on the internet. A large body of work has dedicated itself to exploring potential shortcomings and effects of such algorithms as well as the politics, consequences and strategies for understanding algorithms on social networking sites.  Less work has been dedicated to the individual reaction to personalized algorithmic predictions. This research study explores the phenomenon of algorithmically generated personality profiles and the impact of these profiles when revealed to profiled individuals. Using the personality platform CrystalKnows, a service dedicated to generating personality profiles via an algorithm which captures, sorts and analyzes publicly available, online data, this examination builds and expands upon existing works by targeting the effect of platforms and services like CrystalKnows on profiled individuals. Due to the potential real-world consequences of these algorithmic predictions and personality profiles, there exists a greater-societal impact and importance of knowing what they contain, whether they are perceived to be accurate, and how people react when presented with their personal profile.

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See below for the slides from my upcoming presentation at the Undergraduate Scholarly Showcase regarding the CrystalKnows study described above. Click here for a PDF copy of the presentation.