We might be missing the point here by focusing on romantic relationships.<p>The fact that people make fewer posts on Facebook as they become closer might mean something, in general, about the kinds of relationships that Facebook sustains.<p>Facebook is the modern equivalent of a Christmas card...It's a way of maintaining surface-level contact with many people: letting them know that you care...but you don't <i>necessarily</i> care enough to catch up through a more direct and personal medium.<p>Communicating with your closest friends or your partner mainly through a Christmas card would be silly, in my opinion; we tend to choose less distant methods of communication. So, it's not surprising that people would exchange fewer posts with close friends, as well as romantic partners, as they get to know them.<p>Those are just my two cents, speaking from experience and observation. I'm sure HN has a range of opinions about this, and I'm interested in hearing other people's perspectives.
A couple years ago, when I was still on Facebook, I got in this big fight with my girlfriend. I unfriended her on Facebook as a childish act of vengeance, and I noticed that the ads on the side suddenly turned into ads for dating websites. Maybe it was just me, but from the looks of it, Facebook thought I had broken up with my significant other and was targeting ads based on this assumption.<p>It was then that I realized that every inference they make about you means big business. It means they can now target ads specific to your relationship tendencies on Valentines day, her birthday, his birthday, on your anniversary date, and so on. They can also pick up on events like break-ups and target ads toward you even then. Just another manifestation of Big Data.
"Facebook might understand your romantic prospects better than you do."<p>This article makes me angry.<p>4 years ago, I met a girl and we added each other on Facebook. For a year, she saw my posts, but Facebook was hiding all her posts from me.<p>Ultimately we ran into each other again and fell in love. But it really sucks that I didn't see that year of her life while it was happening. Facebook simply decided not to show her in my timeline.<p>I wish that my friendships and relationships were not judged by an algorithm or censored without my knowledge. Machine learning et al are great for numerical tasks, but let's not try to treat emotions quantitatively. I would hope that we have a better sense of our emotions than computers reading just a fraction of my communications with someone.
What exactly are those data points? I doubt they are individuals, they wouldn't wrap so tightly around the curve around such a tiny scale (between 1.5 and 1.7 timeline posts per day).<p>This looks like a very small effect but one with a very distinct form so I'd be curious to see the details.
If Facebook can predict when a relationship is due to begin, why not just set the relationship status automatically? They must be doing this internally even if they don't display it.<p>Or how about they notify all your friends: "John is sharing 1.65 posts/day with Janet but only 1.32 posts/day with his girlfriend Jane. Click here to suggest he dumps Jane and starts a new relationship with Janet."
What exactly kind of graph is this? I see three plots: a blue line, a thick purple segment and black speckles. None of them are labelled.<p>Is one of them a mean, for example? What is the variance in these data? My gf and I only post on each other's pages once per month, max, for example, yet we ust be part of this "study." The variance is especially important because the six-month span from top to bottom (1.66 - 1.54 = 0.12) is large compared to mean of the whole graph (~1.60).<p>What kind of selection criteria were used to create this graph? How many couples? What ages? What countries? (I don't accept "worldwide" b/c I don't accept that people of all countries post at the same rate).<p>This "information" has all the marks of Facebook trumpeting their macho data muscles to impress advertisers and the Atlantic flexing their paranoia muscle to stoke reader's outrage. I suspect those black dots are simply graphical saccharine to give the aesthetic appearance of "data."
I can't help but compare the second plot in the story, which plots "Positive emotions level" by time, to my passion-attraction model, which plots the same -- <a href="http://joshuaspodek.com/visual-model-understand-passion" rel="nofollow">http://joshuaspodek.com/visual-model-understand-passion</a>.<p>Mine is just for fun, or rather just to speculate on something interesting from a geeky perspective to see what that perspective reveals about ourselves. Soon after making it I saw a plot some guy made of the number of texts between him and his girlfriend that vaguely resembled my plots. The Facebook plot doesn't continue to a relationship's decline, so it can't compare completely, but it does suggest we can quantify some interesting patterns and see what they reveal about us.<p>If there's anything most of us would like, it's to understand our passions and attractions to improve these emotions and the relationships they lead to.<p>It would be sad if the only entities using the data were companies that sell ads like Facebook and Google, and not ourselves.<p>Also, if you like data analysis like this on relationships, be sure to check out Okcupid's Oktrends -- <a href="http://blog.okcupid.com" rel="nofollow">http://blog.okcupid.com</a>.
This is selective after the fact analysis. The data of how people behave before and after a relationship positive apex (two people becoming a couple) is irrelevant unless compared with those with a negative apex as well (those that did not become a couple).
In my experience the data presented here shows the need to cut further or obtain additional data. There's some correlation, but the data appears to be a rough aggregate and the absolute magnitude of the movement is small. Also unclear if cyclical or macro effects were removed. Pretty much all the other comments here are anecdotal or attempted to draw conclusions from insufficient data.<p>This is why pop psychology is generally reviled by psychologists.
I'd like to see a graph of my own personal interactions with each of my FB friends over time. Obviously, I already know what this graph would look like, but it'd be pretty neat (and maybe a little sad) to see my failed relationships juxtaposed with the ones that have lasted.
Link to the actual note, if anyone is interested: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-formation-of-love/10152064609253859" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/the-for...</a>
I know FB is built to create engagement on their site, but I don't have an FB account - the data science team posts are amazing and it's the first content that makes me want to "follow" along. Is there a service to convert FB pages into RSS feeds?<p>Edit: I found it here: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/feeds/notes.php?id=8394258414&viewer=0&key=AWjDEHR4mDKInNmC&format=rss20" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/feeds/notes.php?id=8394258414&viewe...</a> - I didn't realize I'd have to click through the "see more" link on the time-line.
I remember reading on HN that some US supermarket [0] could predict pregnancy based on shopping. So they would start sending baby-care products offers before the couples found about it. They ceased doing that because people found it just too creepy. Any more remembers more?<p>[0] a really large one, so that I recognised it's brand while never been outside Europe
It would be more interesting to also see the stats about IM's between two people. Also does their study account for all the teenage girls that post that they are in a relationship with their best (girl) friend?
Wow, 100 days, that's over 3 months, what can they possibly be sharing/talking over 100 days? So we are saying this people are "trading" the outcome of 2-3 dates with 100 days of cat pictures sharing? I really don't get the point of this.
an increasing number of posts leading to a relationship and then a drop in messages as the couple is spending time together - OMG GENIUS I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED!!!!
I think a lot of people would have no problem predicting this pattern without looking at any Facebook data. Likewise, the participants and their more observant friends surely know that a relationship is likely to happen well before it becomes official. Relationships mostly follow the same course. I guess it's mildly interesting to actually see it in a more concrete form.