Saturday, January 09, 2010

Why the campaign against quizzes

Well, without mincing words and cutting the short story shorter, its facebook that has made me arrive at this decision. Recently some intellect invented these quizzes and a few geniuses began scoring points on them. And frankly, I still don't get why people take up these quizzes despite my repeated assurances that they don't contribute to our general knowledge. For instance there was this absolutely perfect quiz that I found recently...

"What number are you from 1 to 10?" - And a person actually took the quiz and was even quite elated of that fact. Here goes some of the comments that I can recollect from that intellectual conversation...

A (the person who took the quiz): Whoa!! 5, Thats's so true.. I was born in the month of May !! :)
Yeah!! And so are 1/12th of the world's population.

B: Hey !!!!!!!! Same pinch !!!!!!!!
Will you please stop doing that! Exclamations still mean something in English grammar!

C: he he... You remember we scored a 5/25 in the recent apti that we took...
Big deal.. And you are proud of it!

D:  :D
Well, that actually was a comment.

A: True.., and you know what 25/5 is again 5!
Aha ! Now thats a true genius.


E:  Hey A, how do I take that quiz..?
Why in the world would you want to take that..?


F: doood, I goott six :)
Oh yes! And you should be proud of that! And please, please, please, sit through a 3rd grade spelling class!

I simply had to stop reading beyond that point. Well, if that wasn't enough, there's another of these ultra hi-fi quizzes...

"Which bollywood actor is your perfect date?" And the answer is S R Khan

A (the person who actually took the quiz): Whoa, the King Khan :) :) :)
Yeah! In your dreams!!

B: Hmmmmmmm...... I would have preferred Hritik..
As if your opinion matters! And since when did you turn into a honey bee ?

C: Hey!! Awesome yaaaa,..
I know that would be awesome, you weirdo! Get off my facebook !!

D: Liked, Liked! Hope it's a blind date.
Of course! He has to be blind to date you!

E: I'd suggest you go to CafeDay, its got a lovely ambience :)
Is there any more sanity left in this world?


F: He's married you know, but who cares .. he he..
Are you that hopelessly desperate? And stop giggling at your own fatuity!!


And these are only a few samples of these 'intelligentia' quizzes.  What's your favourite color? Whats your friend's favourite color? (Why would you take a quiz to find that). Who's your best friend for the day? (I'm sure he would definitely denounce you after this effort of yours!) What's your picture of the month/day/year/decade/century? (You are hopeless beyond this point). Identify this bollywood actor, your friend scored 100% (And the pictures are invariably SRK, Salman, Aamir and Amitabh).

Well, to this point, I had made this post create a jovial reading material. To move on to more serious aspects, there are some serious negatives to these apparently dumb quizzes. The questions that you answer while taking these quizzes are actually asking for information that might probably be linked to your real and personal life. You might actually end up giving more information than you would if you were subjected to a formal debriefing by the FBI with a lie detector! For instance, a conglomerate of these quizzes can actually help someone even identify what could be your password or your secret question for most secure websites. While most of us take care not to reveal our personal information beyond a point in these social networking sites, we tend to divulge more information on these seemingly irrelevant and simpleton quizzes. And while your messages, comments, etc.., are all a part of the social networking site (which guarantees (if there is any) safety and usage of these information) the quizzes and the results are saved out of the networking site's domain - which means not only do you allow these folks to access your information, but also you allow them to take away your information to their own databases on which you literally have no legal claim or knowhow. Well, that's that - just be beware my friends, tough these might appear to be fun initially, they might become more complicated. Beyond a point.

3 comments:

Gopal said...

shankar.. i think reading comments of quizzes also don't contribute to your general knowledge.. :P
jus kidding da.. nice blog.. u got a good style bro.. :)

Mighty Titan said...

Macha!! Thanks da! :).. Never knew that you were a blog reader too! Perhaps you should consider writing too- am sure you would make an excellent writer.

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