DO YOU think your spontaneous, free-spirited take on life makes your behaviour random and unpredictable? Albert-L谩szl贸 Barab谩si takes a different view. Human behaviour, he argues, is predictable due to its 鈥渂ursty鈥� nature 鈥� long periods of low activity interspersed with bursts of high activity. By tracking our past behaviour, Barab谩si thinks we might be able to predict our future actions.
Bursts opens with the story of Hasan Elahi, an American artist whose work takes him around the globe. Elahi鈥檚 erratic travel patterns set him apart from the crowd, making him an outlier and attracting the attention of the US Department of Homeland Security. Elahi is the first of many people we are introduced to who take us on 鈥淓insteinian jumps through time and space鈥�. One minute Barab谩si is describing a gun seller who marks his dollar bills so that their movement can be tracked throughout the US, the next we are following Einstein鈥檚 pattern of letter-writing.
As well as these specific examples, Barab谩si shows how bursty behaviour can be found everywhere, from online browsing to visits to the doctor. The reasons behind these bursts of activity may vary, but they don鈥檛 make us any less predictable, he says.
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Barab谩si concludes that we are all simultaneously bursty and quite regular; apparently random but deeply predictable. He foresees a future in which a 鈥淰ast Machine鈥� follows our every move, cataloguing human behaviour. Perhaps the large amount of data this would collect will enable us to predict the future, but at what price?
Dutton