Heaven knows, there's no shortage of online quizzes these days. It seems we're all looking for some sort of objective perspective on our own lives. Perhaps we're too self-conscious (or frightened?) to ask for feedback from our own friends or families. So it's much safer to throw it out there to the great Cybergods, "So, Buzzfeed, which Game of Thrones character do I most closely resemble?"
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| (It wasn't this one) |
I confess, I regard these little online forays into predictability and assessment much the same way I thought of my beloved Ouija board or Magic Eight Ball in junior high school: as an entertaining diversion. For one thing, with the quizzes, I can almost never pick my favorite Beyoncé song, mostly because I only know one. (Why do they never ask my favorite Tom Waits song? It's "Alice," clearly. Duh.)
I also doubt that any of my responses are used for anything other than more data-gathering, though I truly cannot see how learning I prefer the woods over the beach is valuable to any sort of Global Domination scheme. Maybe the conquering armies will encroach from the beach based on my data.
Yeah, I'm fairly convinced the answer I'm given after my quiz is the same one I'd've been shown before I answered a single question. Totally random spin of the wheel. How else would I have been assessed as having "American" manners. How rude.
Still, finding myself at a crossroads after my divorce, I am looking to make some other life changes, including where I live. And, scientist that I am, I can't help but feel there must be some sort of data-crunching algorithm that can help me decide if I would fit in better with the people of Scotland or France. Or Corvallis, Oregon. So I asked Buzzfeed. They said Capetown, South Africa. I'm not exactly sure how to interpret that, but I'm not going there, and Buzzfeed offered no second-choice option. Looks like I'm on my own with that particular decision.
However, every once in a while, I am intrigued by a quiz that seems to have some genuine merit, is based on data which can be sifted and combed through factual information. Such was the quiz I took today, my Most Used Words on Facebook. The quiz was scant on details -- Was this spanning my entire FB career, or just the past year? Did it include replies to friends' posts, or only my own homepage? -- but I was eager to see how I represent myself online, versus how I think I represent myself.
What popped up was this:
Words of various sizes and colors and directions clumped together to form a vaguely cloud-shaped bubble.
Again, there was no code for interpretation: Does the size or position of the word correlate with its frequency? Does the color represent context of the original post? Were the vertical words only used on weekend days?
But overall, it was a little shocking. If I take it at all seriously -- which I sort of feel I should, because it's not like the biggest central word is "Cupcake," which, let's face it, I love a good cupcake but it's not the sort of thing I chat about on FB -- it's not very flattering. And, it seems most of the quizzes are engineered to perpetuate that feel-good high self-esteem thing that's so popular these days. So I'm assuming this is the best of what the quiz can offer me. Still, it's hardly flattering.
Let's go with the most basic assumption, which is that the most central, largest word is the most frequently used: "Just."
My friend, Elise, got "today" and "dogs" and "great." My friend, Dana, got "happy" and "amazing" and "snuggles" -- "Love" was her central word.
Just. And "I'm." -- Ouch.
Overall, without nitpicking, my cloud looks mostly philosophical. Introspective. Chatty. Both Elise & Dana's clouds look like them, like who they are. So I guess maybe my cloud does, too.
As I said at the very beginning, I don't put a lot of faith in these quizzes. Woe to she who uses Facebook (or VonVon!) as her psychotherapist! (Calling Dr Google!) And, in my own defense, it's been a tough couple of years. So perhaps introspection isn't a bad thing just now. -- And, really, I know at least one FB friend for whom "Horn" might be his center word. Who knows?
Or maybe I've asked, frequently enough to log the words, "I'm just really like that now?"
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