8 ms·

Study show that people think that data analysts and accountants are boring

56 points by taubek 5y ago

taubek 5y ago
Stereotypes suck. Why would data analytics be boring?
- grenoire 5y ago
  Read the abstract: Data analysts, not data analytics. The persons interested in these seem to have boring traits.
  - taubek 5y ago
    Yeah, my mistake. But how can such person be considered boring? In my mind the are the persons that tackle the data, find connections where others don't see it, good at observing patterns...
    - d7d7ectc 5y ago
      If you have to ask then you're probably boring outside your field. I work in property management and while it's fascinating to me I'm also aware that things like the story of the neighboring building with a staircase railing that's fine but implemented debateably within code will put the average person to sleep. Being interesting isn't about you it's about a two way interaction.
    - 4ndr3vv 5y ago
      >But how can such person be considered boring? Consider a continuum from Boring to Exciting. Now place these jobs on them: - Firefighter - Rocket Scientist - Data Analyst They are more boring, ergo, they are the boring jobs.
      - cfcosta 5y ago
        Isn't "boring" also a function of "would I see myself doing this?"? People don't seem to find being an Uber driver boring, because you talk to people all day. This sounds extremely boring and tiresome to me.
    - scantis 5y ago
      Don't worry, people on HN know what filthy beasts data analysts truly are. Everyone who digs that type of mathematics, is also doing some other naughty things for fun. What is surprising from this shotty paper is that they conclude boring people are perceived as "less competent". Seems counter-intuitive, considering accounting and taxes.
      - mattcwilson 5y ago
        I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole paper. Perhaps you thought it would be boring? They did two different studies. One took a list of occupations, and asked the respondents “Joe is an accountant. How boring does that make him seem, 1-7?” The other study then created a vignette combining attributes that were individually rated into a bigger description, then asked “how competent (skilled, hard-working) does this person seem?” So the connection is boringness -> low competency, and not necessarily all data analyst -> boring. Data analyst was down the list a bit on boringness - less than accounting, law, and a few others. Mathematics on the other hand had the lowest boringness rating of the occupations.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      > how can such person be considered boring? Have you met my constant companions, Dunning and Kruger?
jjgreen 5y ago
Well yes. Yes. Of course, it's a bit of a jump isn't it? I mean, er, data analyst to lion taming in one go. You don't think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say, via machine learning?
- zwischenzug 5y ago
  For those that don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAOQH4xEyhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAOQH4xEyhM
circlefavshape 5y ago
> "Unfortunately, some people are perceived as boring." Some people just are crashing bores.
dusted 5y ago
I find it mildly entertaining that someone had to do a study to come to this conclusion
- _8j50 5y ago
  Indeed. What was their objective? Studies show that I too am boring.
s0teri0s 5y ago
There are vastly worse things to be than boring.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  Young people definitely make decisions about things based on perceived social appeal. It's kind of a thing.
  - technobabbler 5y ago
    Can you blame them? Social appeal has significant mating and survival consequences. I think the whole lonely geek thing has gotten better in the last decade, but it used to be really bad. Like the Lone Gunmen in the X-Files (really dating myself now). If you're in that stereotype, either you end up finding a lucky niche that appreciates your talent (easier these days) or you can easily end up ostracized and terribly lonely, with fewer friends, mates, opportunities, etc., which can in turn lead to severe depression and other mental health consequences. "I'm smart, I'm nice, why doesn't anyone like me"... used to be a common complaint of the geeky types. Thankfully it's a bit better these days.
    - spacemanmatt 5y ago
      > Can you blame them? Can't and don't. It's just a measurable fact of the human condition. I'm not sure why you thought I would.
      - technobabbler 5y ago
        Not you personally, sorry. It's just a saying. "Can anyone blame them" would've been a better choice of phrasing.
- treeman79 5y ago
  For someone with full blown ADHD. There isn’t much worse then being bored. It feels like a physical pain so much so that I’ll take a considerable amount of physical pain over being bored.
FinanceAnon 5y ago
I think for many people the definition of boring is: - anything that I don't understand - anything that forces me to think
- hef19898 5y ago
  Plus: I never saw a drama series about it
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
    What about that documentary starring Ben Affleck?
    - hef19898 5y ago
      Oh, that one. They always pick those special cases for those real-life documentaries, don't they? Maybe it changes when Netflix turns it into sequel series...
- louis___ 5y ago
  This is the kind of comment a very boring person would make
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  You're two thirds of the way there. The final, most important piece of the puzzle is of course "anything that, having put in the thought required to understand it, would be considered a waste of time an energy". Talk about the analytics of, say, how and why spouses cheat, and you'll be able to get anyone's attention easily.
- technobabbler 5y ago
  And: - even if I learned it, nobody in my social circle would care
- culopatin 5y ago
  Although the study says the among the most boring hobbies is watching tv, which everyone understands and evokes almost no thought at all.
llampx 5y ago
What people think is extremely influenced by pop culture. Programming was boring, coding is cool. Investing is boring, VC is cool. Being a lawyer was boring, being a lawyer is cool.
- antattack 5y ago
  People comfortable with numbers are also not average in their soft skills.
- mgh2 5y ago
  The impact factor of the journal is 5/10
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  This comment reminds me of how the Simpsons potentially influence public opinion on nuclear power being unsafe.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- swayvil 5y ago
  Seriously. Society is an airtight room made of mirrors.
tailspin2019 5y ago
I couldn't help chuckle at this one. I've known quite a few accountants over the years. Some fit this typical stereotype rather well, and others have been a bit more "dynamic". However, they are notable in that nearly all of them have been some of the nicest people I've ever met, with very high levels of integrity and authenticity. Very level headed, high attention to detail, professional, knowledgeable and kind. Obviously the profession does attract a certain type, but despite any negative stereotypes, in my experience their traits overall seem to be overwhelmingly positive. I cannot say the same however for software developers (of which I'm one). Far more variability there! I guess this is partly because there is perhaps a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant, whereas any random blundering idiot who dropped out of school can become a software developer (n=1 proof: me) :-p
- jqpabc123 5y ago
  a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant I couldn't help chuckle at this one. When I was in college, engineering was known as "pre-accounting" --- those who couldn't handle the math went into accounting. This is not to say accountants aren't nice people but the math involved is what my engineering professors disparaging referred to as "kindergarten" algebra so the barrier to entry is really not very high.
  - ss108 5y ago
    He didn't mean in terms of skill or difficulty; he was referring to the bullshit one has to go through to actually be an accountant (certifications, etc).
    - jqpabc123 5y ago
      Just like a lot of other professions --- only easier. Try passing a legal bar exam or becoming a licensed engineer.
      - ss108 5y ago
        I have passed the bar exam actually lol Can't say whether or not it's easier than an exams to become an accountant. Bear in mind though that one needs to keep taking exams to maintain CPA status, whereas in law, we have no such requirement. Just have to keep doing (usually bullshit) CLEs. In any event, any kind of licensure is more than we have to become devs, which I think is the main point. edit: I see your point in another comment that one need not be a CPA to be an accountant, and that's fair enough.
moss2 5y ago
Shocking!
sn41 5y ago
Time to consider becoming a lion tamer [1]. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQlCOmXuHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQlCOmXuHM
jimhefferon 5y ago
I was a math major in college. Now, math is not exactly stock car racing, or lion taming, but I never would have conceived of doing business with my life. It was obviously way dull and the only people I knew around the dorm who majored in it were dopes who were coasting through college and didn't know what else to do. (Everybody sees, right, that I am setting up to be proved wrong?) Twenty years later I got a subscription to the New Yorker and they ran a regular business column (https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/james-surowiecki https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/james-surowiecki) . Almost every one was super interesting. Decision making under uncertainty, leveraged buyouts, and all kinds of stuff that was worth thinking about. These days, someone here turned me on to Matt Levine's newsletter (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...). I never thought that finance could regularly be laugh out loud fun. Who knew? I'm a college professor. I sometimes tell the Business folks that they could do with a lesson in marketing. They smile, a little, and change the subject. I think they are so flooded with folks that it is not really of interest. Too bad.
- toyg 5y ago
  > I think they are so flooded with folks that it is not really of interest I think they actually want to actively discourage people. They understand supply and demand.
montebicyclelo 5y ago
A possible limitation that jumps out to me about the study is that the participants were all from crowd-sourcing services (mainly Amazon's Mechanical Turk, residing in the USA; but also Prolific.co, residing in the UK). Are people who work for crowd-sourcing services representitive of the wider population? I found their definition of boredom interesting: > Boredom is often conceptualized as the adverse experience of wanting but being unable to pursue satisfactory activity. It is an unpleasant emotion characterized by low or mixed arousal, a lack of interest in the situation, the perception that time is passing slowly, failure to sustain attention, and a lack of perceived purpose. Boredom, an affective experience, signals that current (in)activity fails to offer a sense of meaningfulness and propels the pursuit of actions that, for example, offer a sense of purpose, novelty, or might temporarily distract from one’s immediate predicament. And what might make people boring: > [prior] results indicated that stereotypically boring people are characterized by negative egocentrism in interactions (e.g., lack of interest in the other person’s contributions and constant complaining) and banality (e.g., interest in a single topic only; repeating jokes); they talked less and shared relatively little subjective information. > Our research shows that being perceived as boring likely conveys low competence and low warmth, being a social burden, thus causing avoidance by others. Their table of stereotypical characteristics of boring people: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table1.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/... Their table of boring jobs: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table2.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/... Their table of boring hobbies: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table3.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/...
Razengan 5y ago
Study shows that studies are boring
hkt 5y ago
_People_ are boring.
ianai 5y ago
Title reads like every one of my public school bullies.
alexfromapex 5y ago
I would love to know what people think about software engineers.
Havoc 5y ago
As an accountant - Not surprised. Part of the issue is that you’d spend 8 hours a day doing stuff that is quite arcane and the average person has literally no reference point that would make it relatable. eg I mostly do large private equity stuff - mostly offshore. Confidentiality aside the average person has zero chance of following any sort of cross jurisdiction finance stuff. Or worse they read some clickbait write up on Panama paper or whatever by a journalist that also doesn’t know anything about the topic aside from outrage sells newspapers. So I mostly just don’t say anything. Add 8 hours of sleep and you don’t have many hours of interesting left
nickd2001 5y ago
Guardian did an amusing take on it here : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/19/if-you-find-everyone-else-boring-you-only-have-yourself-to-blame https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/19/if-you-find-...
MiddleEndian 5y ago
Clearly they have not seen The Accountant (2016), starring Ben Affleck.

56 points by taubek 5y ago

taubek 5y ago

Stereotypes suck. Why would data analytics be boring?

grenoire 5y ago
Read the abstract: Data analysts, not data analytics. The persons interested in these seem to have boring traits.
- taubek 5y ago
  Yeah, my mistake. But how can such person be considered boring? In my mind the are the persons that tackle the data, find connections where others don't see it, good at observing patterns...
  - d7d7ectc 5y ago
    If you have to ask then you're probably boring outside your field. I work in property management and while it's fascinating to me I'm also aware that things like the story of the neighboring building with a staircase railing that's fine but implemented debateably within code will put the average person to sleep. Being interesting isn't about you it's about a two way interaction.
  - 4ndr3vv 5y ago
    >But how can such person be considered boring? Consider a continuum from Boring to Exciting. Now place these jobs on them: - Firefighter - Rocket Scientist - Data Analyst They are more boring, ergo, they are the boring jobs.
    - cfcosta 5y ago
      Isn't "boring" also a function of "would I see myself doing this?"? People don't seem to find being an Uber driver boring, because you talk to people all day. This sounds extremely boring and tiresome to me.
  - scantis 5y ago
    Don't worry, people on HN know what filthy beasts data analysts truly are. Everyone who digs that type of mathematics, is also doing some other naughty things for fun. What is surprising from this shotty paper is that they conclude boring people are perceived as "less competent". Seems counter-intuitive, considering accounting and taxes.
    - mattcwilson 5y ago
      I’m guessing you didn’t read the whole paper. Perhaps you thought it would be boring? They did two different studies. One took a list of occupations, and asked the respondents “Joe is an accountant. How boring does that make him seem, 1-7?” The other study then created a vignette combining attributes that were individually rated into a bigger description, then asked “how competent (skilled, hard-working) does this person seem?” So the connection is boringness -> low competency, and not necessarily all data analyst -> boring. Data analyst was down the list a bit on boringness - less than accounting, law, and a few others. Mathematics on the other hand had the lowest boringness rating of the occupations.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    > how can such person be considered boring? Have you met my constant companions, Dunning and Kruger?

jjgreen 5y ago

Well yes. Yes. Of course, it's a bit of a jump isn't it? I mean, er, data analyst to lion taming in one go. You don't think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say, via machine learning?

zwischenzug 5y ago
For those that don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAOQH4xEyhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAOQH4xEyhM

circlefavshape 5y ago

> "Unfortunately, some people are perceived as boring." Some people just are crashing bores.

dusted 5y ago

I find it mildly entertaining that someone had to do a study to come to this conclusion

_8j50 5y ago
Indeed. What was their objective? Studies show that I too am boring.

s0teri0s 5y ago

There are vastly worse things to be than boring.

spacemanmatt 5y ago
Young people definitely make decisions about things based on perceived social appeal. It's kind of a thing.
- technobabbler 5y ago
  Can you blame them? Social appeal has significant mating and survival consequences. I think the whole lonely geek thing has gotten better in the last decade, but it used to be really bad. Like the Lone Gunmen in the X-Files (really dating myself now). If you're in that stereotype, either you end up finding a lucky niche that appreciates your talent (easier these days) or you can easily end up ostracized and terribly lonely, with fewer friends, mates, opportunities, etc., which can in turn lead to severe depression and other mental health consequences. "I'm smart, I'm nice, why doesn't anyone like me"... used to be a common complaint of the geeky types. Thankfully it's a bit better these days.
  - spacemanmatt 5y ago
    > Can you blame them? Can't and don't. It's just a measurable fact of the human condition. I'm not sure why you thought I would.
    - technobabbler 5y ago
      Not you personally, sorry. It's just a saying. "Can anyone blame them" would've been a better choice of phrasing.
treeman79 5y ago
For someone with full blown ADHD. There isn’t much worse then being bored. It feels like a physical pain so much so that I’ll take a considerable amount of physical pain over being bored.

FinanceAnon 5y ago

I think for many people the definition of boring is: - anything that I don't understand - anything that forces me to think

hef19898 5y ago
Plus: I never saw a drama series about it
- ad404b8a372f2b9 5y ago
  What about that documentary starring Ben Affleck?
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Oh, that one. They always pick those special cases for those real-life documentaries, don't they? Maybe it changes when Netflix turns it into sequel series...
louis___ 5y ago
This is the kind of comment a very boring person would make
AussieWog93 5y ago
You're two thirds of the way there. The final, most important piece of the puzzle is of course "anything that, having put in the thought required to understand it, would be considered a waste of time an energy". Talk about the analytics of, say, how and why spouses cheat, and you'll be able to get anyone's attention easily.
technobabbler 5y ago
And: - even if I learned it, nobody in my social circle would care
culopatin 5y ago
Although the study says the among the most boring hobbies is watching tv, which everyone understands and evokes almost no thought at all.

llampx 5y ago

What people think is extremely influenced by pop culture. Programming was boring, coding is cool. Investing is boring, VC is cool. Being a lawyer was boring, being a lawyer is cool.

antattack 5y ago
People comfortable with numbers are also not average in their soft skills.
mgh2 5y ago
The impact factor of the journal is 5/10
frankbreetz 5y ago
This comment reminds me of how the Simpsons potentially influence public opinion on nuclear power being unsafe.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
swayvil 5y ago
Seriously. Society is an airtight room made of mirrors.

tailspin2019 5y ago

I couldn't help chuckle at this one. I've known quite a few accountants over the years. Some fit this typical stereotype rather well, and others have been a bit more "dynamic". However, they are notable in that nearly all of them have been some of the nicest people I've ever met, with very high levels of integrity and authenticity. Very level headed, high attention to detail, professional, knowledgeable and kind. Obviously the profession does attract a certain type, but despite any negative stereotypes, in my experience their traits overall seem to be overwhelmingly positive. I cannot say the same however for software developers (of which I'm one). Far more variability there! I guess this is partly because there is perhaps a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant, whereas any random blundering idiot who dropped out of school can become a software developer (n=1 proof: me) :-p

jqpabc123 5y ago
a higher barrier to entry to become even a "junior" accountant I couldn't help chuckle at this one. When I was in college, engineering was known as "pre-accounting" --- those who couldn't handle the math went into accounting. This is not to say accountants aren't nice people but the math involved is what my engineering professors disparaging referred to as "kindergarten" algebra so the barrier to entry is really not very high.
- ss108 5y ago
  He didn't mean in terms of skill or difficulty; he was referring to the bullshit one has to go through to actually be an accountant (certifications, etc).
  - jqpabc123 5y ago
    Just like a lot of other professions --- only easier. Try passing a legal bar exam or becoming a licensed engineer.
    - ss108 5y ago
      I have passed the bar exam actually lol Can't say whether or not it's easier than an exams to become an accountant. Bear in mind though that one needs to keep taking exams to maintain CPA status, whereas in law, we have no such requirement. Just have to keep doing (usually bullshit) CLEs. In any event, any kind of licensure is more than we have to become devs, which I think is the main point. edit: I see your point in another comment that one need not be a CPA to be an accountant, and that's fair enough.

moss2 5y ago

Shocking!

sn41 5y ago

Time to consider becoming a lion tamer [1]. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQlCOmXuHM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqQlCOmXuHM

jimhefferon 5y ago

I was a math major in college. Now, math is not exactly stock car racing, or lion taming, but I never would have conceived of doing business with my life. It was obviously way dull and the only people I knew around the dorm who majored in it were dopes who were coasting through college and didn't know what else to do. (Everybody sees, right, that I am setting up to be proved wrong?) Twenty years later I got a subscription to the New Yorker and they ran a regular business column (https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/james-surowiecki https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/james-surowiecki) . Almost every one was super interesting. Decision making under uncertainty, leveraged buyouts, and all kinds of stuff that was worth thinking about. These days, someone here turned me on to Matt Levine's newsletter (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthew-s-levine https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/authors/ARbTQlRLRjE/matthe...). I never thought that finance could regularly be laugh out loud fun. Who knew? I'm a college professor. I sometimes tell the Business folks that they could do with a lesson in marketing. They smile, a little, and change the subject. I think they are so flooded with folks that it is not really of interest. Too bad.

toyg 5y ago
> I think they are so flooded with folks that it is not really of interest I think they actually want to actively discourage people. They understand supply and demand.

montebicyclelo 5y ago

A possible limitation that jumps out to me about the study is that the participants were all from crowd-sourcing services (mainly Amazon's Mechanical Turk, residing in the USA; but also Prolific.co, residing in the UK). Are people who work for crowd-sourcing services representitive of the wider population? I found their definition of boredom interesting: > Boredom is often conceptualized as the adverse experience of wanting but being unable to pursue satisfactory activity. It is an unpleasant emotion characterized by low or mixed arousal, a lack of interest in the situation, the perception that time is passing slowly, failure to sustain attention, and a lack of perceived purpose. Boredom, an affective experience, signals that current (in)activity fails to offer a sense of meaningfulness and propels the pursuit of actions that, for example, offer a sense of purpose, novelty, or might temporarily distract from one’s immediate predicament. And what might make people boring: > [prior] results indicated that stereotypically boring people are characterized by negative egocentrism in interactions (e.g., lack of interest in the other person’s contributions and constant complaining) and banality (e.g., interest in a single topic only; repeating jokes); they talked less and shared relatively little subjective information. > Our research shows that being perceived as boring likely conveys low competence and low warmth, being a social burden, thus causing avoidance by others. Their table of stereotypical characteristics of boring people: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table1.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/... Their table of boring jobs: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table2.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/... Their table of boring hobbies: https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/sage/journals/content/pspc/0/pspc.ahead-of-print/01461672221079104/20220307/images/large/10.1177_01461672221079104-table3.jpeg https://journals.sagepub.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/...

Razengan 5y ago

Study shows that studies are boring

hkt 5y ago

_People_ are boring.

ianai 5y ago

Title reads like every one of my public school bullies.

alexfromapex 5y ago

I would love to know what people think about software engineers.

Havoc 5y ago

As an accountant - Not surprised. Part of the issue is that you’d spend 8 hours a day doing stuff that is quite arcane and the average person has literally no reference point that would make it relatable. eg I mostly do large private equity stuff - mostly offshore. Confidentiality aside the average person has zero chance of following any sort of cross jurisdiction finance stuff. Or worse they read some clickbait write up on Panama paper or whatever by a journalist that also doesn’t know anything about the topic aside from outrage sells newspapers. So I mostly just don’t say anything. Add 8 hours of sleep and you don’t have many hours of interesting left

nickd2001 5y ago

Guardian did an amusing take on it here : https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/19/if-you-find-everyone-else-boring-you-only-have-yourself-to-blame https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/19/if-you-find-...

MiddleEndian 5y ago

Clearly they have not seen The Accountant (2016), starring Ben Affleck.