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Robin Roger, the UNC grad student doing research on blogs and community, has opened her survey to all comers. It's here. It takes about 15 minutes, she says.
From the first page: Your participation is voluntary. You may stop participating at any time. You may skip any question you choose not to answer for any reason. Your answers are completely anonymous.
As I said before, help the kid out.
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Comments (6)
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I would say it closer to five minutes.
Posted on March 11, 2006 7:49 PM
Ditto Patrick's comment. Although it may have taken me 7 since my home connection is a Luddite dial-up one...
Posted on March 11, 2006 11:58 PM
If you're a fast reader you can be thru it in 3 minutes flat. I put water in the micro-wave for tea then sat down to take the survey; finished just as the micro-wave bell went off. So People, help the Kid out.
Posted on March 12, 2006 11:41 AM
The question I did not see, was why are most newspapers going south.Had my answer all ready.
Posted on March 12, 2006 8:17 PM
I took it..
What I find disturbing is its clear agenda...
Seems as if it is trying to say: do you know your neighbors on your street? if so, you're likely to work with them and solve problems. do you know the people on the blogs? if not, you're not likely to solve problems and work together.
I'll predict the outcome (see, this is solving a problem): blogs, because of their ability for people to feel disconnected from each other, often spin into discussions that are worthless and border on arguments. Whereas, since people live on a block or neighborhood and see either other, the feelings and spirit of community yield generally positive results.
I'd actually say that the premise (and the predictable results) are correct. But, THE KEY thing that the survey or results won't take into account is that living in a neighborhood IS LIVING. Typing messages on a blog is not critical to survival.
In fact, most blog posts I've seen invite critical comments and discussions.
I can't say I've ever walked out of my house and had a neighbor say: "Gee, neighbor, did you see how I painted my house? It's perfect, right? Oh, and let's talk about the finer points of rollers vs. sponge brushes. Really, let's debate it. Oh, you think traditional brushes are best? I found this study that says otherwise..."
Of course, I could be wrong about my premise of the survey.. but it sure comes across in the questions..
Posted on March 12, 2006 11:10 PM
I agree with Jim. The survey seemed overly transparent, but it could be that was just to throw us off.
I also noted (and sent an e-mail to the student conducting the survey about this) that her questions didn't take into account people (like me) who use an RSS reader to read the N&R blogs. I read the blogs every day, but rarely visit the newspaper's Web site. It seems like those answers might skew her data.
Jason
Posted on March 13, 2006 8:49 AM