A while back you may remember me posting an in-depth look at the Everybody Votes channel on the Wii. In it, I complained about the fact many of the questions were uninteresting and didn’t bring up any grand scope for discussion… Well, I’m going to retract that statement - While many of them are still nothing special, there occasionally comes one that really does prove to be a bit of a shocker. So, read on to find out opinions on some of the worldwide polls and some closer to my home. You may just be surprised…
1) How do you feel about your name?
I like it – 83.1% I don’t like it – 16.9%
On face value, this worldwide poll doesn’t have the most interesting of results… It was never a close call, wasn’t really that surprising and generally wasn’t the greatest thing ever. However, look further into the matter and you begin to see some more of the interesting details… For instance, the reason for the general result can be confidently summed up on the basis that your name forms part of your character, and is generally a big part of your life, so in general you’re going to like it for making you who you are… It seems most people agree with this theory, with 74.1% of you predicting correctly. Why, then, is there a dip in females liking their name (79.4%) to men (84.5%)? At the time, I would of thought it’d almost be a dead split due to the general human characteristics explained above, but obviously I was wrong. There could be many reasons for this – Men are generally more egotistical, and therefore their name is important, for instance. It could also be said women are a bit more insecure (Don’t kill me, ladies, I’m just stating an opinion!) and therefore aren’t as confident about themselves, therefore growing to dislike their name These might not be the sharpest of differences, I admit, but they’re still ones to consider.
Also of interest to note is the breakdown of results by country… Ignoring the rest of the results in the middle, it turned out the country with the most positive votes was Brazil, while the one with the most negative being Japan. The big question is how this came to be, with most guesses from me being a shot in the dark – Brazilians being names after famous footballers? Japanese names being too complicated? Your guess is as good as mine, but it certainly shows that there was more to this question than it seemed at first.
2) Which is more important?
World peace – 48.5% Personal happiness – 51.5%
Yes, you are reading that right – People in the UK and surrounding areas care more about themselves than the world around them! You’re probably reacting quite a bit to that, whether it is by laughing, being shocked or whatever, but even I can see the reasoning behind it. At first, it does seem egotistical, but think about it – What good is world peace if no-one is actually going to enjoy it? On a similar note, it could be said that you aren’t going to attain world peace if everyone is so damn grumpy while trying to do so. Some of you may dismiss those points, but look at it from another angle – Nobody wants to be depressed, right? Yes, it’s still pretty selfish and stuff, but I’m guessing everyone wants to be happy with themselves in an imperfect world and not be manically depressed in a perfect one.
However, as I’ve said before, this doesn’t change the fact this probably wasn’t what everyone was expecting. Only 30.3% predicted that personal happiness would win, and considering both males and females where almost split 50/50 when it came to the actual voting it shows that some people were rooting for world peace despite not actually voting for it. I personally find it curious that peace, justice and the rest are pushed so heavily on the news and we care about it, but we never forget about ourselves in the midst of it all – Just goes to show how things aren’t always as black and white as they seem.
3) Which is more important?
Love – 77.4% Money – 22.6%
This is sort of a follow-up from the last question above, really, but it’s quite a fascinating one. Here, money and the material possessions related to it are completely overwhelmed in favour for love for your family, each other or whatever. Nothing there that is truly a surprise, I agree, but here’s an interesting factor to ponder - What personally makes you happy? I’m going to bet its love to a great extent, and with love generally comes peace. Therefore, that is perhaps part of the reason for the results above. It all links together, don’t you see?
Still, this question still stands up pretty well on its own, especially when you look at the results for each gender… 85.6% of females chose love over 74.6% for males, which is a pretty significant difference. This can probably be placed down to the fact that each gender has its own stereotype – Females are generally more caring while males want to punch people in the face, and I don’t think anyone would really disagree with that despite the exceptions that can be seen. Still, nice to see that both found in favour for love and most people expected the same result, with 75.2% predicting correctly. We’re all a bunch of softies in the end… Give me a hug!
4) Do you read the newspaper every day?
Yes – 20.3% No – 79.7%
I will admit, this one caught me off guard a bit – After confidently predicting that the winner would be “Yes” I was open-mouthed when I saw how bad it lost. Yet when I think about it now, it seemed pretty stupid of me to pick that in the first place… In today’s fast-moving society, where news can break at any time in any place and be reported just as fast, newspapers are sort of taking a back seat. The television can provide everything we want to know via what we see on screen at lightning speeds, and I’m not ever considering the mighty power of the Internet… I thought that was in meltdown the day Steve Irwin died, and the first newspaper story about it appeared the next day. That’s pretty slow, and the chances are we’ve seen it all already… That therefore means there is simply no need to read it all again.
There may be another reason for this result, however, and it can be found in the very question. It comes in the shape of the word “Everyday” – It may seem insignificant, but it changes the whole question. Sure, you may flick through a paper from time to time, but if you’re not reading one every day you’re going to vote no. Even the slight idea than men can often be seen hidden behind a paper seems farcical, as only 21.3% chose it, with the lesser amount of 17.3% of women saying yes and providing no weird shocks at all. Newspapers, eh? Not worth the stuff they’re printed on.
4) Do aliens exist?
Yes – 71.0% No – 29.0%
Just a trivial little question, this, but I think it does well at showing us how strong we can all believe in something that isn’t actually proven to exist. All we actually have to go on are misshapen crop circles, weird floating saucers and much more vague stuff besides, but we still believe. Maybe this has something to do with the fact a lot of Wii gamers are slightly on the geeky side (Come on, be honest), but I like to think it is down to the fact we don’t take what we see around us as all there is – We think there is more, with people constantly trying to reach out and prove it all the time and others generally just hoping for it to be so. This may be reading too much into it, but I think you’ll agree it’s nice to consider anyway.
Going past that and taking a closer look at the results shows there’s nothing truly shocking about them – More men believe than women with a 74.6% result over 60.1%, which is to be expected when you think about gender stereotypes once again… Oh, and because most men are geeks. The prediction accuracy of 69.2% is pretty much to be expected as well, with only the tiniest of dips when compared to the actual result showing a few people believed but didn’t think others would. Yet they were wrong, and it certainly seems like we’re going to keep watching the skies…
So there you have it… A deeper look into the simplicity of the Everybody Votes channel. Chances are you have something to say, so make sure to get your voice heard in the comments section. After that, I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see what the next set of polls and results has to offer…
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