Buzzed about BuzzFeed: Why We Love Online Quizzes

I remember sitting in computer class in high school with one of my best friends, hopping from website to website taking as many personality quizzes we could find. Which Harry Potter character would we marry? Which city should we live in? What is our secret leprechaun name? (For the record, I got Mini McNugget and she got Dirtfoot Greentoes.) We would even make our own, thinking long and hard about which multiple choice responses would warrant sorting the test taker in Gryffindor — the highest of honours. Regardless of what we were doing, it was easy to say that we were infatuated with taking these tests and with the idea that these amateur and fun quizzes could reaffirm what we thought about ourselves, or give us a knew self-insight.

I find it funny because now, seven years later, I can say I’m just as interested in doing these online quizzes as I was in Grade 9. And oddly enough, I can see I’m not the only one. People take quizzes and post their results on Facebook, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone share a quiz from buzzfeed.com. I say oddly enough because the majority of people who are interested in these quizzes are people like myself — in university and learning about academic testing and its rigorous process. What is making people gravitate towards these tests fully knowing that they are neither valid nor reliable?

After looking and finding little to no articles on the matter, I’d like to propose a couple of reasons why this interest in online quizzes is perpetuate so much in today’s culture. Of course, it could be that these quizzes are merely a fun distraction from whatever it was you were initially doing on the computer. However, I think that their accessibility is largely a factor in their popularity. Often times to take real, credible tests, it costs money and they are difficult to find. You might even need to go through a sort of service to access it. These online quizzes provide quick, immediate results and feedback on the self.

It could also be the way in which these quizzes are created and framed. These quizzes are informal, and written as such, in the typical way people of my generation speak online. They are trendy and understandable, and thus do not feel too serious. This might make the test taking process seem a little more manageable to people. If one gets a result they are not happy with, they can discredit the test and carry on with their day. And if they like their result, they can use it positively towards their self-enhancement.

There are many possibilities as to why these quizzes are so intriguing, and it would be interesting to carry out more research into this matter to look at what people are really interested in learning about themselves, and how they are willing to access that information.

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