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Inferring Personality From Email Addresses
paleshadows writes "Three researchers from the University of Leipzig published an interesting paper titled 'How extroverted is honey.bunny77@hotmail.de? Inferring personality from e-mail addresses' (PDF). From the abstract: 'Email addresses represent the thinnest slice of information that people receive from one another. Using 599 e-mail addresses of young adults, their self-reported personality scores and the personality judgments of 100 independent observers, it was shown that personality impressions based solely on e-mail addresses were consensually shared by observers. Moreover, these impressions contained some degree of validity. This was true for neuroticism, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and narcissism but not for extroversion."'
Personality tests are (reasonably) based around extroversion in normal social interactions. I think its fairly well accepted that one's introversion/extroversion on the Internet is not necessarily the same as in "meat space". Perhaps "honey bunny" is shy in real life but using the freedom and anonymity of the web to act as she would like to be able to act in real life without consequences. The reserved accountant in real life could be the brash bon vivant at their computer.
Granted, a similar variation would be likely for other attributes, but I would be surprised if extroversion was the trait most likely to have a radical change (increase).
One of my favorites, though, is the story of a guy applying for a job at Yahoo! He registered the email account "iwanttowork(@yahoo.com)," and used that to send his resume. They hired him.
I wish I could find my source for that, but I'm damn sure it happened.
SIG: HUP
My personal email address is 5@.. and I chose it because I'd never change it, because it *doesn't mean anything.* I'm not five years old, my birthday lacks a five in it anywhere, it's not in my driver's license number, my name isn't five letters.. It doesn't mean anything, and that's why it works.
Dude, everything means something. "5@" is loaded with information.
1. Who the heck gets an email like that? Either a very early adopter, a supporter of a very small ISP or somebody with access to a unique webhost. If you're using one of the giant internet providers, you are tech-savvy enough to know how to tinker with email identifications. Many companies and institutions which have their own email host require employees to conform to email naming standards, so either you didn't acquire that email name through work, you're a guy who buys his own web hosting or works high enough up some sort of chain to be able to do goofy stuff without comment from superiors. The common factors one or both of the following deductions: You're a guy who knows his way around a computer thank-you-very-much or you hold an important (but not too-important, or you wouldn't have such a weird email address) position of some kind. That takes care of the broad guess information. The personality reading is much tighter.
2. You're a guy who doesn't want to advertise silly nonsense in an email name. This doesn't mean you can't be an anime geek, but it does mean you're aware enough to know that such an email name is kind of silly, and you don't want to come across that way. Whatever the case, a name which gives away nothing is consciously chosen for that reason. This suggests you are a cautious person with some pretty good brains, which tells me a lot about how you can be expected to handle yourself in any number of scenarios. Any confidence you have in social situations probably comes from a studied investment of will power rather than a naturally bubbly charisma. This gives me the general locations of a ton of probable fear, anger and happy buttons I could poke around for if I wanted to manipulate you. --Don't worry. I don't do that! :)
3. It's possible that you are also one of those guys who has a no-nonsense somewhat self-important and conservative (though not necessarily in the political sense) attitude who spends a fair bit of energy devoted to sighing heavily at people who ARE silly and thoughtless.
One might be tempted to ask, "Why 5 and not some other number?", but that's too squishy an area to really tread in. Though one might note that had you picked a "1" it would suggest some outward self-importance which you either couldn't embrace or chose not to for some reason. 3 and 7 are 'magic/biblical' numbers, whereas 5 suggests balance and digital thinking. But like I said, that whole area is a bit too squishy for my liking.
In any case, that's all just from a number "5". I know what you're not, and that gives me a ton of profile to work with. I could be wrong about all of it, of course, but those patterns do jump to mind first.
-FL