The Math of Love 2/4 - 懂你英語(yǔ) 流利說(shuō) Level8 Unit1 Part1
Okay, so Top Tip #1: How to win at online dating.
Okay, so my favorite online dating website is OkCupid, not least because it was started by a group of mathematicians.
Now, because they're mathematicians, they have been collecting data on everybody who uses their site for almost a decade.
And they've been trying to search for patterns in the way that we talk about ourselves and the way that we interact with each other on an online dating website.
And they've come up with some seriously interesting findings.
But my particular favorite is that it turns out that on an online dating website, how attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are,
and actually, having people think that you're ugly can work to your advantage.
Let me show you how this works.
Okay, so, in a thankfully voluntary section of OkCupid, you are allowed to rate how attractive you think people are on a scale between 1 and 5.
Now, if we compare this score, the average score, to how many messages a selection of people receive, you can begin to get a sense of how attractiveness links to popularity on an online dating website.
This is the graph that the OkCupid guys have come up with.
And the important thing to notice is that it's not totally true that the more attractive you are, the more messages you get.
But the question arises then of what is it about people up here who are so much more popular than people down here, even though they have the same score of attractiveness?
And the reason why is that it's not just straight forward looks that are important.
So let me try to illustrate their findings with an example.
So if you take someone like Portia de Rossi, for example,
everybody agrees that Portia de Rossi is a very beautiful woman.
Nobody thinks that she's ugly, but she's not a supermodel, either.
If you compare Portia de Rossi to someone like Sarah Jessica Parker,
now, a lot of people, myself included, I should say, think that Sarah Jessica Parker is seriously fabulous and possibly one of the most beautiful creatures to have ever walked on the face of the Earth.
But some other people, i.e., most of the Internet, seem to think that she looks a bit like a horse.
Now, I think that if you ask people how attractive they thought Sarah Jessica Parker or Portia de Rossi were, and you ask them to give them a score between 1 and 5, I reckon that they'd average out to have roughly the same score.
But the way that people would vote would be very different.
So Portia's scores would all be clustered around the 4 because everybody agrees that she's very beautiful, whereas Sarah Jessica Parker completely divides opinion.
There'd be a huge spread in her scores.
And actually it's this spread that counts.
It's this spread that makes you more popular on an online Internet dating website.
So what that means then is that if some people think that you're attractive, you're actually better off having some other people think that you're a massive minger.
That's much better than everybody just thinking that you're the cute girl next door.
*
According to the data what kinds of users receive the most messages ? Those whose attractiveness ratings vary.
How do researchers at OkCupid collect data on the users? They look for patterns in their behaviors.
What discovery did OKCupid researchers find from their data? A user’s attractiveness does not completely determine their popularity.
Why does Fry compare the data with two celebrities? To demonstrate how attractiveness affects popularity.
Why is OkCupid?Fry's favorite online dating website? It is rin by mathematicians who have collected a lot of data.
*
A cluster is... a group of things of the same type that are close together.
To illustrate means…to show the truth of something more clearly.
Now, I think this begins to make a bit more sense when you think in terms of the people who are sending these messages.
So let's say that you think somebody's attractive, but you suspect that other people won't necessarily be that interested.
That means there's less competition for you and it's an extra incentive for you to get in touch.
Whereas compare that to if you think somebody is attractive but you suspect that everybody is going to think they're attractive.
Well, why would you bother humiliating yourself, let's be honest?
Here's where the really interesting part comes.
Because when people choose the pictures that they use on an online dating website, they often try to minimize the things that they think some people will find unattractive.
So, the classic example is people who are, perhaps, a little bit overweight deliberately choosing a very cropped photo,
or bald men, for example, deliberately choosing pictures where they're wearing hats.
But actually this is the opposite of what you should do if you want to be successful.
You should really, instead, play up to whatever it's that makes you different, even if you think that some people will find it unattractive.
Because the people who fancy you are just going to fancy you anyway, and the unimportant losers who don't, well, they only play up to your advantage.
*
How does the data contrast with conventional wisdom? Trying to fit in with everyone else won’t make you as popular as being different.
What lesson does Fry suggest people take away from this data? You should express yourself honestly online.
Why are users more likely to send messages to people who others don't find attractive? They think there will be less competition.
*
An incentive is something that...motivates a person to do something.
If something is deliberate, it is…intentional or planned.
*
If we compare this score, the average score, to how many messages a selection of people receive, you can begin to get a sense of how attractiveness links to popularity on an online dating website.
It turns out that on an online dating website, how attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are, and actually, having people think that you're ugly can work to your advantage.
When people choose the pictures that they use on an online dating website, they often try to minimize the things that they think some people will find unattractive.
You should play up to whatever it is that makes you different, even if you think that some people will find it unattractive.
*
It's not totally true that the more attractive you are, the more messages you get.
That means there's less competition for you and it's an extra incentive for you to get in touch.
They have been collecting data on everybody who uses their site for almost a decade.
*
And they've been trying to search for patterns in the way that we talk about ourselves and the way that we interact with each other on an online dating website.
How attractive you are does not dictate how popular you are, and actually, having people think that you're ugly can work to your advantage.
