We probably all do them, the Facebook quizzes that pop up in your timeline when a friend shares it. Looks like fun to see "what city you should live in", "guess your age", "which Star Trek character are you", "Which Star Wars character are you", "What kind of dog would you be", "Which Disney princess are you", "Do You Know Your British Slang", "Are you a Redneck"and on and on and on - quizzes only limited by someone's imagination and the time it takes to put it together. People take them and then share their answers, OR like me, they just take them for the heck of it, mild curiosity to raging "gotta know!" curiosity, and then never share. There are some that drive me crazy in that they have gross misspellings or incorrect grammar usage. OH wait! There was a grammar quiz just today and it was correct in its grammar. That was kind of nice. Some others are so bad that I just leave them mid-quiz. Come on, quiz-makers, police your work and at least make it correct grammatically and with your facts!
When you think about it, it's ludicrous that you could answer 10 or 15 totally meaningless and random seeming questions and come up with an iron clad opinion on where you should live or what 60's screen siren you most closely resemble. Plus, if you're like me, you take some quizzes multiple times. The same ones pop up as other friends "share" them so it gives you the opportunity to take them multiple times. Usually my answers are different each time too. A different time of day, a different day, different state of mind, different physical feelings, etc., make different answers and hence different answers. Countries I should live in range from: New Zealand, England, France, USA, Spain, and China. wow, how did China get in there? Must have really been feeling a bit odd when I answered it that day, although I wouldn't mind living in China for a period of time. When I have taken a quiz multiple times, I have never, ever gotten the same answer twice.
Let us Guess Your Age made me realize that everything is connected because no matter how I answered those questions, they always got my age correct - Oh hey, my age is listed in my profile! What a surprise - NOT. It often says you can "make your own quiz". I haven't tried this because haven't been interested enough. Some of the quizzes must really do some extensive research though as in finding the most popular dogs so that everyone always gets a popular breed as the "dog you would be". Same with the Disney Princesses. I must have missed seeing the "What Disney Villain do you most resemble" quiz.
Facebook does not claim that these are scientific quizzes or absolute answers or even accurate depictions of your opinions and likes and dislikes. They are fun to do though and so an excellent marketing tool for them. And that's what we must remember - they are fun and they are marketing so there's the possibility that they can sell you something somewhere down the line. My friends that take them and share and post are hopefully like me, doing it for fun. Although I have seen a few posts where they are sooooo very, very happy that they are like a certain movie star or should live in a certain location that I am wondering if everyone realizes the silliness of the quizzes and the fickle nature of them. Oh well, they can be enjoyable just to see what questions they will ask. I will continue to take them as I am sure will most everyone else. When they disappear from Facebook, I will know they have lost their popularity and their ability to give the marketing agents any useful information about us.
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