We're all just creatures of habit

http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/scientists-make-it-official-people-are-so-predictable/19364257

by prat • 16 years ago

25 8 16 years ago

prat• 16 years ago

93% is great! but this would have been ~100% in pre-automobile era. And would keep falling as we become more and more mobile. Humans may be creatures of habit but not humanity.

roc• 16 years ago

It'd be interesting to see the data comparing urban and sub/ex-urban habits.

I'd guess that urbanites are less predictable. But it would be really neat to see to what degree that holds true and how much (or if) it actually diverges from their suburban counterparts.

(Given the increased density of destinations, increased discoverability of destinations, more efficient and numerous methods of transit and lower travel times, I'd expect they would go more different places more often.)

aaronblohowiak• 16 years ago

This would also vary depending on how you calculate the accuracy of the predictions. Urbanites might be more predictable than suburbanites because (pure speculation) the urbanites tend to only do things in the city, whereas suburbanites are used to driving all over and will therefore have a much larger sense of "nearby"....

In the study this is "within a square mile" which is a HUGE portion of san francisco, but doesn't even get me to my dry cleaners in the burbs.

icefox• 16 years ago

When I lived in Oslo me and my wife would go walking all over the place and take different and often random trips. Back in the states we don't have a sidewalk in suburbia (one bike trail near by which is the only place we walk) and have to drive so when we drive it is usually to the same places. So I would say I am much more predictable now then I was before.

rationalbeaver• 16 years ago

I bet if you tracked our internet habits you would come to similar conclusions.

johnwatson11218• 16 years ago

Not only my commute but once I'm at work you can say the same things for most of what I do on my computer. Personally I think there is so much potential for this idea of getting rid of the general purpose workstation/computer. Instead why not use statistics that watch what I do with my computer then "grow" an os/environment that only does those things using the bare minimum UI?

Then once I need to step outside of my normal routine I have to dynamically load modules that get my system close to a stock windows or ubuntu system.

sliverstorm• 16 years ago

This data is incomplete; have we considered that the truly randomly mobile people might well, perhaps even as a consequence of their random personality:

1: not have/carry/use_frequently a cell phone?

2: travel to locations outside of cell tower range?

pella• 16 years ago

Physicist Albert-László Barabási - TedxDanubia talks about Predictability and Entropy ( 27jan2010 Budapest )

( need Silverlight technology for play .. ) http://myshowroom.tv/show/49efb25b-732a-4af9-abe5-f99d7c56b5...

very nice animation at 3:00

We're all just creatures of habit

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