We have a problem.
In order to narrow down the scope of our project, we decided to offer a survey to our collective network and the interaction design community on Reddit. In addition to probing respondents for basic identity categories such as age, gender, race, and socioeconomic class, we asked them the following questions:
‘Where were you primarily raised?’
‘Do you currently live in Denmark?’
‘What was the population of the area in which you were primarily raised?’
‘How often do you talk to people you don’t know?’
‘How comfortable are you talking to people you don’t know?’
‘How long does it typically take before you are able to feel comfortable around new people? What is your reasoning?’
‘Would you mind if a stranger started a conversation with you? Why or why not?’
‘How do strangers typically react if or when you start a conversation with them? Is it generally a positive reaction?’
‘Is there a cultural norm in your country of origin advising for or against socializing with strangers. Do you agree?’
‘Why would you start a conversation with a stranger (eg. on the metro, at the market)?’
The purpose of asking these types of questions was to gain insight into how people might feel when they are met with the opportunity to speak with a stranger. In the end, we collected 50 responses, which made us ecstatic (that’s, like, a lot, isn’t it?)! We then dove into the answers and began to fish for meaningful correlations.
As the vast majority of our survey’s respondents were caucasian, the factor of race had to be ruled out (it’s still a very important issue, obviously). 1/3 of respondents were raised in an area with a population of over 100k people, although population did not appear to have any influence on their answers — neither did socioeconomic class. The vast majority of respondents were under 35-years-old.
What did matter was whether or not the respondents are currently living in Denmark and whether or not they identified as male or female. Thereby, we decided to generate 4 main user profiles; We calculated the average comfortability (1–5) with conversing with strangers and the average frequency at which people claim to do so.
Male living in Denmark
Comfortability: 2.0
Frequency: 2.81
Male living outside of Denmark
Comfortability: 3.69
Frequency: 3.23
Female living in Denmark
Comfortability: 3.0
Frequency: 3.4
Female living outside of Denmark
Comfortability: 3.76
Frequency: 3.55
What was especially striking was how people outside of Denmark do not seem to engage with strangers as much as they are comfortable with, while the people living in Denmark engage more with strangers than they are comfortable with. What this tells us is that it may be more important to increase comfortability with engagement in Denmark, and more important to increase frequency of engagement outside of Denmark. Because we had previously converged on tackling the Danish market, it is clear that we must pursue increased comfortability.
Regarding the more qualitative answers, we took notes on the responses and identified common threads. One of the most notable features was that people generally wanted to start conversations with strangers for the purpose of acquiring knowledge or new experiences. While people are weary of engaging strangers for fear of disturbing the strangers’ peace, most of our respondents said they wouldn’t mind if a stranger engaged them. This tells us that there is likely a strong cultural stigma against casual engagement — especially in Denmark. Respondents are fearful of being rejected and read tentatively into others’ body language to determine whether or not they should engage.
This is a plethora of information that is certainly worth exploring during our brainstorming sessions in the coming weeks. The big question is now…
How can we increase frequency of engagement between strangers in Denmark, as a consequence of increased comfort levels?
A higher level of communication will result in increased sharing of information, spurring healthier economies and happier people.
