I Still Love Riding the Kangaroo

I'm not gonna lie, doing this Facebook status statistics thing is kinda fun. It's not so much that you get a "better feel" for the way your friends think about certain momentarily relevant issues, but more about how much they're willing to show it. I spent much of last night gathering data based on my friends' Facebook statuses (statii?) and put them once again into delicious pie form. Problem is, Excel '07 is a tremendous pain in the butt (as is the entire Office '07 line, but that's another rant for someone else who cares to obsess over that sort of thing), so things will be out of alignment and generally ugly, and without the subtle selection of colors from last time.

I should probably mention, for those who are curious, I consider myself a Steelers fan, although a very passive one. A good chunk of my family lives in the Pittsburgh area, so I practically grew up in Kennywood. On the whole, I'll generally vote for any Pittsburgh team (Steelers, Penguins, Pirates), but I'm not obsessive about them. I don't own any jerseys or go to any games, nor do I clear my schedule to watch the games. But I'll gladly support them, because Pittsburgh's been a big part of my life.

Anywho, on with the show. The data for these first three charts was taken between 10:15 (A couple of minutes after the game ended) and 11:30 last night. It should be noted that in all of these data samples, multiple status updates from the same person were all considered in tallying the data. The first chart shows what was on everyone's minds all day yesterday:



Interesting... a dead-even split, 41-41. Let's move on to the game itself, shall we?



It seems less people are posting about the Super Bowl here, but then again, it makes sense. I could only imagine that most of the people who were watching it didn't have the time or felt the necessity to go onto Facebook to talk about it.

I should probably confess that I actually didn't catch much of the Super Bowl, as I was working last night. Luckily, we closed early (for some reason, no one was coming into the restaurant that night, how strange), but I just came home, checked the score, then continued upstairs to my computer. I did, however, watch the last five minutes or so of the game (two commercial breaks' worth, if that helps approximate the time), then quickly ran to the computer again to start watching for more statuses. Here's what came up next:



Worth noting:
--Number of people who posted within the first minute of the official end of the game: 3
--Number of people who posted within the first 20 minutes: 13
--Number of people who posted a message about the Steelers winning before the game actually ended: 1, and you know who you are. Shame on you for almost jinxing it.

I figured I'd keep in the great tradition of the first 20 posters' data being recorded. After recording this data, I went to bed, woke up, went to the grocery store, came home, and checked Facebook once again, to find this:



I never really thought about it before, but there was probably a bit more on the line for Pittsburgh this time around, given that win or lose, Pennsylvania would be the center of national attention once again, with Phil (that jerk) once again being pulled from his hole to once again tell us we're stuck with crappy weather until mid-June. I didn't see any of the footage from this morning, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few Terrible Towels floating around in the background.

Nonetheless, after the initial victory and they day wore on, less people were talking about the Super Bowl anymore, and life returned to normal. That's just how Facebook statuses go, I guess. If anything, it's somewhat of a reflection on how quickly society moves, going from one state of mind to the next phenomenon around the corner. We live in a busy world, with a lot of things aiming to grab our attention and opinion. That's why statisticians have so much fun!

Edit, 2/3: Definite props to kfunque for sending me a link to a New York Times article which did a similar thing during the game, but with Twitter posts. Check it out!