DOCUMENTING HOW I MOVED AROUND OVER TWO WEEKS IN COLLEGE 💨
aka stalking myself and showing you the data of where I've been
My data journalism professors taught me that one way to learn more about something is to collect a bunch of data on it. So, to learn more about myself, I collected data on how I moved around for two weeks straight.
Each time I exited a building or location, I recorded whether I traveled by foot, bike, bus, or car (or a combination of them), as well as a plethora of other details like any pastime activities, my movement speed, how long the trip took, the purpose of the trip, the temperature outside, any social interactions, and where the destination was.
If all of this data collection sounds like a lot of work, it really was. I will never recover from the scare of “Oh crap! I forgot to note when I got off the bus”. Whenever I missed a data point, I had to dive deep into my memory and phone history to recall what happened and make the best estimate of what time the event happened…down to the very minute.
WALKING, BIKING, DRIVING, AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT
For starters, the data I collected really proves to my parents that I don’t in fact live a sedentary lifestyle (my mom believes I spend too much time at desks). From immediate calculation, I averaged 34.1 miles a day, but there were a lot of outliers factored in, such as trips with long drives. Once removing them, the total is adjusted to 13.3 miles a day—not bad at all.
In total, over two weeks, this added up to 477.5 miles total, which is equivalent in length to 18.2 marathons. The breakdown by transportation method is 39.6 miles via foot, 17.5 miles via bike, 345.2 miles via car, and 75.2 miles via bus. (Sorry for the number vomit; I learned in school to never put that many numbers in one short paragraph)
“IT’S BORING TO EAT A MEAL SITTING DOWN AT A TABLE”
I caught myself saying this once and it’s well reflected in my data collection. Over these two weeks, I consumed 14 meals while walking or on some form of transportation, averaging to eating one meal a day on-the-go. For quick meals, I prefer getting either a burrito or a small to-go box from the dining center, and possibly a lightly caffeinated drink.
As pictured, my favorite drink option is matcha (iced is preferred, but warmed is more suitable for this weather). I like to then go for a walk—either to go to somewhere I need to be or just walking laps around campus while hanging out with a friend.
CHANCES OF HAVING SMALL TALK VS. DEEPER CONVERSATIONS
Hypothetically, say I felt super introverted one day and didn’t want to talk to anyone. What would be the best times to leave a building? To find this answer, I plotted all the times I engaged in small talk or a deeper conversation.
Statistically speaking, the best time for introverted Anna to go outside is between 9 pm and 9 am, which makes a lot of sense because people are asleep then. For extroverted Anna, the best times to run into a friend is from 12 pm to 7 pm—even better if it’s around lunchtime at 1 pm because there is more of both small talk and deep conversations.
To no surprise, chances of having small talk are greater than chances of having deeper conversations. To have deep conversations, not only do you need to run into someone you know (the only condition for small talk), you also need to know them relatively well and both you and them must have time to engage in a longer chat.
HOW MUCH TIME DO I REALLY SPEND MOVING AROUND
From a productivity standpoint, it may be of interest to know how much time I spend getting to and from classes and other places I spend my time. In total over both weeks, I spent 32.7 hours going from place to place.
In the grand scheme of things, there are 336 hours over the course of two weeks. I spend roughly 100 of those hours sleeping, so the 32.7 hours spent getting to and from places does take up a significant amount of time. However, in my data collection, I recorded many instances of having meaningful conversations, getting meals in, studying, and listening to music. i.e., spending time on transportation doesn’t mean time is wasted.
A MOMENT OF APPRECIATION FOR SPEED WALKING & BIKING!!!
Speed walking and biking are highly underrated. Seriously. Let that set in.
Curious to see how often I speed walk, we first need to define what speed walking is. Since the average walking speed for female adults my age is 1.34 m/s, I will consider anything above that as speed walking. Totaling up all the results, I speed walked 74.3% of the times I walked. Woah!
For biking, on average, I went on a trip every other day. Half of these trips were to Downtown Durham, which is the nearest place to my university that has buildings taller than five stories, and the other half were to either my brother’s school or a grocery store outside of downtown.
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