Your social diary will be bursting at the seams with the discovery of this statistical formula revealed today. The criteria behind popularity is unveiled through a mathematical way to calculate your own popularity rating:
Popularity = (32C + 16F + 11H + 14P + 15A) / 4.4
Yahoo! Messenger UK commissioned experts to investigate popularity. They discovered that the average Brit hits their popularity peak at 22. This group in their early life stage lead in the popularity stakes. Their willingness to embrace new technology such as instant messaging, texting and email, all help to enhance their communication. They are time rich and as they are amongst their social environments (school, college and University) they are able to nurture these relationships, which in turn boosts their popularity.
After this point, popularity declines almost immediately as we concentrate on our careers and time isn't so abundant. It hits its lowest point in middle age when our priorities change and we start having families.
It's not all downhill, pensioners, the only set to rival the i-Generation in the popularity stakes, have 9 or 10 good friends, socialise once or twice a week and speak to 3 or 4 friends a day with a whopping 76% considering themselves popular. Unlike the teens, they tend not to spend time gossiping and arguing and are 50% less likely to fall out with friends. Although the over 60s don't text or instant message each other like the 20s and under, their popularity rating is boosted by the quality of their friendship which is warmer and more supportive.
According to Psychologist Dr Glenn Wilson, our popularity depends on five key criteria. Improvements on any of these could increase your overall popularity, communication is the key, hence 'C' possessing the heaviest weighting in the formula.
C - Contact with friends
F - Facilitation of good times
A - Attractiveness
P - Personality
H - Sense of humour
Dr Glenn Wilson comments:
'Friendships shouldn't be difficult or challenging - but like all relationships, they need nurturing. Communication and staying in touch is critical to boosting our popularity.'
Darren Cairns, of Yahoo! Messenger UK comments:
From our research findings we've established that communication is the most important criterion for popularity. We can't make you richer, we can't make you better looking, but we can help you communicate better and stay popular with Yahoo! Messenger.
Key Findings
- Popularity hits its peak at the age of 22
- Communication is the most important criteria to being popular
- 15% of Brits in their early 20s have more than 15 close friends
- 33% of 14-19 year olds spend more than an hour a day text or instant messaging friends
- Pensioners are the second most popular age group
- 80% have a good sense of humour and 67% spend a lot of time 'listening sympathetically' to their friends' troubles
- 10% of 65 year olds have 15 or more close friends
Popularity peak - when Brits are at their most popular
THE POPULARITY TEST
Popularity = (32xC + 16xF + 11xH + 14xP + 15xA) / 4.4
- To work out your popularity rating answer the 5 questions below and give yourself a score between 0-5 for each one.
- Substitute the correlating letters in the formula above with your score for each question.
- Work out the formula and you will end up with a percentage score out of a 100.
C (contact) -Typically, how many hours per day do you spend in contact (direct or indirect) with friends?
0 - 0 hours
1 - 1 hour
2 - 2 hours
3 - 3 hours
4 - 4 hours
5 - more than 5 hours
F (facilitation) - How many invitations out you get in an average week?
0 - 0 invites
1 - 1 invite
2 - 2 invites
3 - 3 invites
4 - 4 invites
5 - more than 5 invites
A (attractiveness)- On a scale of 0 to 5 how would you rate your looks? (0 being "plain" and 5 being "stunning")
P (personality) - On a scale of 0 to 5 how would you describe your personality? (0 being "dull & withdrawn" and 5 being "cheerful and outgoing")
H (humour) - Compared with other people, on a scale of 0 to 5, how much laughing and joking do you do? (0 being "a lot less than most people" and 5 being "a lot more than most people")
Your Popularity rating will be marked out of 0-100i
i Please see notes to editors for more detailed explanation on how this formula is calculated
Pick up more tips on how to make yourself more popular at:
yahoo.co.uk/popularity
-ENDS-
For further information please contact Yahoo! Press Office at (T) 0207 684 6969 and speak to Donald, James or Clare.
Notes to editors
About Yahoo! Messenger:
" With Yahoo! Messenger you can stay in touch with your mates, keep up to date with all the gossip and you get:
" LAUNCHcast - free online radio that lets you choose your music and share it with your mates, letting you become a superstar DJ
" Avatars - Online animation of you that you can dress and style how you want or feel
" Audibles - animated characters that talk, taunt, and flirt, allowing you to put more fun into your message
" Yahoo! Messenger UK commissioned Dr Glenn Wilson, Reader in Personality, Institute of Psychiatry University of London and a mathematician from Media Metrics to devise the popularity formula
" A sample of 1,010 people, representative of the British general public, was interviewed online between 24th and 29th September 2004. Explorandum, an MRS-affiliated research firm, carried out the research
" The weightings against the 5 criteria in the formula are arrived at by a process called "step-wise regression analysis", which first picks out the best single predictor of the criterion (in this case amount of contact with friends)
then looks for the next most important predictor, independent of the first
(in this case ability to help others have a good time), and so on. The score is then divided by 4.4 to reduce the total to a percentage (100 point) score
" The 5 criteria to popularity emerged as most significant from a review of all the research on the origins and correlates of popularity that have been published to date as provided by Dr Glenn Wilson
" Interviews are available with Dr Glenn Wilson and Darren Cairns. To set up an interview please contact the Yahoo! Press Office
" Yahoo! Messenger must be sourced if you intend to print this formula or any of the statistics outlined in this press release
