3 ms·
And even if after all that, they still do? Its not going to be a statistically significant proportion of users who participate in studies to skew the results.
by Shenglong 15y ago
And even if after all that, they still do? Its not going to be a statistically significant proportion of users who participate in studies to skew the results.
That's beautiful, and absolutely true. When I was younger, I remember answering surveys for random offers. I was caught a few times by different surveys for inconsistencies - although I wasn't told explicitly. To cope with this, I drafted up several identities and thought through a backstory to each character - personality, background, etc, which made it much easier to remember details. Depending on what the survey was about, I just picked a profile I felt a researcher would be looking for. Wasn't perfect, but had a hugely high success rate. I doubt very many people will go to my length though. When you start trying to passively filter people, and hit someone like me - well, we see it as a challenge... for better or for worse.
An interesting note: I used one of these profiles far more than the others. As a result, I remember walking home one day near midnight, and thinking "Geeze, I'm 29 already... one more year until I'm 30 - and I still haven't done anything I wanted to do." It didn't strike me until a minute or so later, that I wasn't anywhere near 29, and it wasn't actually my birthday.
- gwern 15y ago> "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." --Kurt Vonnegut