Wednesday, August 14, 2013

STATS: Let's Dance (Issue 3 of Many) #hashtag

Originally, I was going to compare the "old people" vs. "the youngsters" in the SECMAC. However, I did a bad job of guessing the median age. Originally, I was going to pick 2003/2004 as the median year, but I decided to move it back to 2004/2005. I did not move it back far enough. Even if everyone who has yet to respond to the survey were to pick the "2004 or before" choice, the "2005 or after" would still win. The most important conclusion I was able to glean from this data is that I am old.

So, what is interesting about those happy few of us elder MACer's? We are split 50/50 on whether to have a 'ginger ale' or go out dancing, whereas the younger group would much rather go out for a beverage. I have found one dancing club in Ann Arbor: Swing Ann Arbor

People who graduated after 2005 would rather visit the dinosaur exhibit than the race exhibit. People who graduated before 2004 preferred the race exhibit. I was going to make a joke about us old folks having "bad memories of dinosaurs from our childhood", but it wouldn't have mad much sense; if we were really that old, we would have lived through the Civil Rights movement, too.


There was one surprise. The older interns would rather give up TV than Facebook. By a wide margin the younger interns were willing to give up Facebook. I am not sure how to interpret this information. I don't know whether it is too small of a sample size or if older people really are that connected to social networks. Prior to starting the MAC program, I could never have imagined going two days without checking on Facebook. For the last two weeks of the program, I gave up both Facebook and TV. Now that I think about it, I gave up TV first (I also came back to TV first. While I am watching TV right now, I'm not sure about going back to Facebook).
I have formulated one hypothesis for why the older group could be more attached to Facebook than TV. Generally speaking, the older you are, the more likely you are to have a spouse and/or kids. If you have a spouse and/or kids, chances are you do not have as much free time to socialize with your peers. Facebook would be a more important social outlet under those circumstances. Secondly, if you have a spouse and/or kids, you probably don't get to pick what is on TV, so you you might as well give it up.

Moving onto the last of the demographic characteristics, I looked at people who went to U-M for undergrad as compared with those of us who graduated elsewhere. One thing that jumped out was that Wolverines preferred CTools to M+Box at a higher rate than those of us who went elsewhere. I am unsure how often U-M undergraduates make use of either of those two systems.



As was noted previously, interns as a whole would rather get punched in the face than write the EDUC 649 final paper. The breakdown was surprising. For students who earned a degree elsewhere, we were split almost evenly in regards to writing the paper or getting punched. Michigan undergrads were one-sided. Only one out of twelve would rather rewrite the paper. I am unsure if living in Ann Arbor makes people enjoy getting punched in the face or if going to U-M makes people hate writing papers. Something strange is going on there.


We are a thirsty group. While a majority of life-long Wolverines would rather responsibly enjoy an adult beverage, they were three times as likely as students from other schools to enjoy a night out dancing. That brings us back to the start. Shall we dance?

1 comment:

  1. Habana has a fun dance floor, and Necto.. well. Necto has a huge dance floor, and a terrible DJ, and an awesome gay Friday. Enter at your own risk. :)

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