Blog Post

Why You Should Avoid Facebook Quizzes

TO asks: “What about those ‘quizzes’ on Facebook that come up with things like who is your guardian angel, what will your year be like, things like that. I play the quizzes just to see the results but I don't believe in them, even though it would be nice if they were true like meeting the man of my dreams this year, LOL. Should these things be avoided?”

Absolutely – but not just because some of them are associated with predicting the future. The information gleaned from these Facebook quizzes is exactly what was acquired by Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm, that mined millions of Facebook users’ data which was then used for political purposes.

As this article appearing in Salon warns, “If you’ve ever downloaded a personality quiz through Facebook, you may be one of the thousands of people who unwittingly supplied information about yourself and your friends for use in highly targeted psychological profiles exploited in the 2016 presidential campaign.”

Facebook users may be able to see their “scores,” but Cambridge Analytica can see a lot more than that because, thanks to Facebook, they have access to their profiles and real names.

While most of the pop quizzes that appear on Facebook and other social media platforms are more like personality predictions than they are about predicting one’s future, there are some that ask, “Do You Want to Know Your Destiny” which purport to predict a person’s future. Some of these quizzes are generated by data mining companies which require you to sign in via Facebook, which then gives them access to your data.

You should avoid these kinds of quizzes, not just because they mine data, but because they are a source of temptation to dabble in divination which is dangerous because it opens the door to the occult. We might think we’re taking these quizzes “just for fun” but there could be more to it. My recommendation would be to prayerfully discern your motives for taking these quizzes.

For those who have taken these or other Facebook quizzes, you can go to Settings and choose Apps in the menu to the left. This will allow you to see a list of all apps and sites that have been granted access and what kind of information they’ve been given.

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