Whyology Center Finds the Scoop
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Bruab, Pwee, and Scout
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Resident Whyologists | |
Last year, the Whyology Center conducted its first in-depth survey of the citizens of
Whyville. Hundreds of people took the survey and answered questions about what they like to do on the site, why they look the way they do, what they do off the site and more.
The Whyology Center has been closed while it took a year to go through all of the responses and report back -- but here it is! We divided the survey into two parts: life in Whyville and life outside Whyville. Many of you completed the survey, newbies and oldbies alike. The youngest was 8 years old and the oldest was 32. The average age was 12 years, 8 months old, and 73% were girls.
Almost everyone was from the United States and Canada -- maybe because you had to fax or mail your parents permission to take the survey. The first person to sign up was imcool54 and the last person was Stapled (you can see a list on the door of the Whyology Center). The survey was really long -- there were over 70 questions -- so to show our appreciation to everyone who took the time we gave them 300 clams (thanks!).
Whyville Life:
What do most Whyvillians do when they log in? Well, back in 2001 (remember then?), before there were things like Geodig, Why-Pox and the Beach, people spent a lot of their time chatting. See, things stay the same. We asked people what they do first thing when they log in.
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Where do you go when you first log in?
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% of Whyvillians
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Check Y-mail
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29%
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Place to chat (pool, Sportsplatz)
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22%
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Check Ledger
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14%
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Pick Your Nose
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13%
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Grandma's
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6%
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Others
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16%
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There are lots of different things to do on Whyville and everyone does things differently. Many said they chat almost every time they log in; others said they almost never chat. Some people like to play the games and read the Times. Some people have lots of friends that they send y-mail to; others have hardly any. Fifteen percent said that it was important to have a boyfriend/girlfriend, but 32% thought it was not important (50% said it was good for some people, but not everyone). So you can see, there are a lot of different ways to be a Whyvillian.
What else do people do? Here are a list of things:
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Do you...
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% of Whyvillians
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Have a house
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21%
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Written an article for the Times
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15%
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Had an article published
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9%
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Post on the message boards
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33%
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Sold face parts
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46%
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Donated to Grandma
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90%
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We think it is interesting how some people like to get involved in Whyville and help out and other people just like to come and chat with friends -- and some people do both!
We also found out that most people have two (29%) or more than two (46%) different identities. That's a lot of different identities, so you have to be careful who you are talking to. When we asked people if what they look like on the site is the same as in real life -- here are some things they said:
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It's the person i've always wanted to look like blond hair blue eyes u know (girl, 13)
I am african-american and they dont have many blak face parts (girl, 15)
We both have brown hair, but i couldn't find MY blue eyes or MY red lips. (girl, 9)
Well, I have dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, zits, braces, and a weirdly perportioned body, like most teenagers! (LOL) :) (girl, 13)
1st of all i don't have blue hair. the whyville face is what i want to look like but my mom won't let me (boy, 13)
Well different color hair, different color eyes, different features, and different attitude and style (girl, 11)
I don't think i'm that pretty as i am on whyville. (girl, 12)
It just looks like me, exept i wouldnt wear sum of those shurts, and dont have a halo! (girl, 12)
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We also wanted to know how people get to Whyville. Most people heard about it from friends or relatives, but a few (about 10%) found it by searching on the web. About half of the people in the survey said they log in more than once a day, but some only come once a week or less. Most people log on in the afternoon (35%) or evenings (38%) but some log on in the mornings before school or on the weekends (20%). Almost everyone (96%) logs in from home. Most people said they know other people from school or relatives who are on Whyville.
Non-Whyville Life:
What do Whyvillians do when they are not on the site? Lots of things, apparently. Almost everyone is in school: 75% go to public schools; the rest go to private or religious schools. Most Whyville users said that they liked school and did pretty well (90% said they were a "pretty good" or "very good" student).
People do lots of different things outside of school, too (besides Whyville), including sports, music and other fun things (playing with their dog, talking on the phone, drawing, videogames and more). One person does BMX racing, another is president of the Earth Club, and several people are cheerleaders. We can't say whom, because the survey is anonymous.
We asked people what they might want to do as a career and there were lots of different answers. Most popular was that people want to be a musician or artist, second was lawyer and third was web page designer. So you can see how different the people on the site are. Whyville is a diverse place.
Everyone of Whyville knows at least a little about computers. On average, Whyvillians are on the internet over 11 hours a week. We wanted to know what other websites people like to go to, but there were so many responses that we don't have the space to post them here.
Finally, we wanted to know what people liked about the site. We got lots of great responses; here are some of our favorites:
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"The fact that you could dress yourself up and earn clams. And I also think it is a good way ta learn how ta manage money." (girl, age 12)
"I joined Whyville because it sounded like a lot of fun. It would be a good place to talk to alot of different people. I like that u can make your own face and get a house" (boy, age 15)
"My bff told me about it. She said that Whyville is a wonderful place to explore and discover yourself. She also told me that you can make lots of new friends, build your own house and start a family!" (girl, age 11)
"I heard about the games you can play, the clams you can earn to buy things and how you can create your own person??" (girl, age 12)
"Because I was looking on Yahoo for building my own house, and whyville popped up, and I knew that you could build your own house and chat!! That is why i joined!" (girl, age 15)
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What is next for the Whyology Center?
The Whyology Center has been closed for a long time, so we need to get in there do some cleaning before we open up again. We plan to do another, totally different survey. But keep in mind, we always have to get people's parents permission to do our surveys. Stay tuned to the Times to find out more!
Bruab, Pwee and Scout.
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