DOCUMENTING HOW I MOVED AROUND OVER TWO WEEKS IN COLLEGE 💨
aka stalking myself and showing you the data of where I've been
one way to learn more about something is to collect a bunch of data on it. similarly, to learn more about myself, i collected data on how i moved around for two weeks straight.
each time i exited a building or location, i recorded whether i traveled by foot, bike, bus, or car (or a combination of them), as well as a plethora of other details like any pastime activities i engaged in, the speed i moved at, how long it took, the purpose of the trip, the temperature outside, how many social interactions i had, and where i was going.
walking, biking, driving, and public transport
for starters, this dataset really well justified that college ended my sedentary lifestyle from pre-college. from immediate calculation, i averaged 34.1 miles a day, but there were a lot of outliers factored in, such as trips with long drives. once removing them, the total is adjusted to 13.3 miles a day—not bad at all.
in total, over two weeks, this added up to 477.5 miles total, which is equivalent in length to 18.2 marathons. the breakdown by transportation method is 39.6 miles via foot, 17.5 miles via bike, 345.2 miles via car, and 75.2 miles via bus.
“it’s boring to eat a meal sitting down at a table”
i caught myself saying this once and it’s well reflected in my data collection. over these two weeks, i consumed 14 meals while walking or on some form of transportation, averaging to one meal a day being eaten on-the-go. for these quick meals, i prefer getting either a burrito or a small to-go box from the dining center, and possibly a lightly caffeinated drink.
as pictured, an incredible drink option is matcha (iced is preferred, but warmed is more suitable for this weather). i like to then go for a walk—either to go to somewhere i need to be or just walking laps around campus while hanging out with a friend.
chances of having small talk vs. deeper conversations
hypothetically, say i felt super introverted one day and didn’t want to talk to anyone. what would be the best times to leave a building? to find this answer, i plotted all the times i engaged in small talk or a deeper conversation.
statistically speaking, the best time for introverted Anna to go outside is between 9 pm and 9 am. makes a lot of sense because people are asleep then. for extroverted Anna, the best times to run into a friend is from 12 pm to 7 pm—even better if it’s around lunchtime at 1 pm because there is more of both small talk and deep conversations.
to no surprise, chances of having small talk are greater than chances of having deeper conversations. to have deep conversations, not only do you need to run into someone you know (the only requirement for small talk), you also need to know them relatively well and both you and them must have time to engage in a longer chat.
how much time do i really spend moving around
from a productivity standpoint, it may be of interest to know how much time i spend getting to and from classes and other places i spend my time. in total over both weeks, i spent 32.7 hours going from place to place.
in the grand scheme of things, there are 336 hours over the course of two weeks. i spend roughly 100 of those hours sleeping, so the 32.7 hours spent getting to and from places does take up a significant amount of time. however, in my data collection, i recorded many instances of having meaningful conversations, getting meals in, studying, and listening to music, which demonstrates that this transportation time had additional value beyond the obvious value of allowing me get to places i needed to be.
a moment of appreciation for speed walking & biking!!!
in my very humble opinion, i think speed walking and biking are highly underrated. they are my most favorite ways of getting around.
curious to see how often i speed walk, we first need to define this occurrence numerically. since the average walking speed for female adults my age is 1.34 m/s, i will consider anything above that as speed walking. totaling up all the results, i speed walked 74.3% of the times i walked. woah!
for biking, on average, i went on a trip every other day. half of these trips were to downtown durham, which is the nearest city to my university, and the other half were to either my brother’s school or a grocery store outside of downtown.
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