A Study with Multiple Participants
As usual, I came home, lit some candles, put on the telly (that provides strictly background noise), changes into slouch-around-the-house pants, and what do you think I did next?
I opened up my laptop and went right to several sites: Yahoo! for my e-mail, Blogger to post various things (mostly Coldplay lyrics), NOAA to check the weather, and Facebook for different things, and lastly, ebay. Good old evil ebay - it's great but scary. I spend too much. I digress, however.
No, this is about one of my many waiting e-mails... from the Bean in England. She sent this:
"I like you because of who you are to me.... A true friend. And if I don't get this back I'll take the hint. Something good will happen to you at 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. tomorrow."
There were a bunch of very airbrushed images and cutsey sayings and the usual folderol about how this needs to get sent or life as you know it will end. I love debunking this sort of scandelously bad psychology, and I've done so on my own, but now it is time to get more participants into this case study. So I am sending this e-mail:
I opened up my laptop and went right to several sites: Yahoo! for my e-mail, Blogger to post various things (mostly Coldplay lyrics), NOAA to check the weather, and Facebook for different things, and lastly, ebay. Good old evil ebay - it's great but scary. I spend too much. I digress, however.
No, this is about one of my many waiting e-mails... from the Bean in England. She sent this:
"I like you because of who you are to me.... A true friend. And if I don't get this back I'll take the hint. Something good will happen to you at 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. tomorrow."
There were a bunch of very airbrushed images and cutsey sayings and the usual folderol about how this needs to get sent or life as you know it will end. I love debunking this sort of scandelously bad psychology, and I've done so on my own, but now it is time to get more participants into this case study. So I am sending this e-mail:
"As usual, I need to put this to the test. And since I've tested it numerous times myself, it is time to broaden this study!
Empirically speaking, if you are a positive thinking adherant, many good things will happen to you between 1300 and 1600 - unless the author of this meant 0100 - 0400, in which case, I know - KNOW - something good will happen! I will be sleeping! Sleeping is good.
As you know, I blog about this stuff all the time. Here is the page address (http://traislinge.blogspot.com/ - posting of 23 June entitled A Study with Multiple Participants), so me a favour and tomorrow after 1600, please add a comment telling me what happened to you between 1300 - 1600. Be as detailed or not as you wish, just keep in mind that I'll post it (unless you tell me not to; but I won't use your actual name unless you tell me to, so it'll be anonymous!). Be part of the experiement!
This only went out to real, honest-to-goodness-I-consider-you-my-friend, people that I am at least mostly confident will want to participate. It's going out to a total of 9 people plus me, so I can easily give percentages on this... and how it works out. You do need to follow the instructions of sending this out to 5 people in 5 minutes. I'm doubling the number to be sure I can handle the percentage math!"
Empirically speaking, if you are a positive thinking adherant, many good things will happen to you between 1300 and 1600 - unless the author of this meant 0100 - 0400, in which case, I know - KNOW - something good will happen! I will be sleeping! Sleeping is good.
As you know, I blog about this stuff all the time. Here is the page address (http://traislinge.blogspot.com/ - posting of 23 June entitled A Study with Multiple Participants), so me a favour and tomorrow after 1600, please add a comment telling me what happened to you between 1300 - 1600. Be as detailed or not as you wish, just keep in mind that I'll post it (unless you tell me not to; but I won't use your actual name unless you tell me to, so it'll be anonymous!). Be part of the experiement!
This only went out to real, honest-to-goodness-I-consider-you-my-friend, people that I am at least mostly confident will want to participate. It's going out to a total of 9 people plus me, so I can easily give percentages on this... and how it works out. You do need to follow the instructions of sending this out to 5 people in 5 minutes. I'm doubling the number to be sure I can handle the percentage math!"
So that is the experiment. Stay tuned for tomorrow's posting about the Conclusion of the Study!
Comments
I did get a phone call from my sister saying that a neighbor of hers had passed away and shared the story of what happened with me. Maybe this is interesting in that my sister and I don't really have much contact. We used to be BEST friends until my Dad died and then we had to split some property/possessions and things just totally fell apart. To the point we didn't speak for years. Now, things are civil but still only revolving around when something specific happens, like a birth or a death. I miss the times I used to have with her but I know that it will never be that way again. Our relationship must have been meant to change for whatever the reasons. So it was nice to chat for a little bit but we still have our guard up in some ways and she went on about her day and her life and I went on with mine with no promises or plans.
The other thing that happened was a friend called and asked if I wanted to meet her for lunch. Last time I called her she wasn't able to go, and this time I wasn't. But it was nice for the call and the offer anyway.