Y’know how when you go to an article on the Washington Post website, it interpolates a demographic-poll screen before you can read the article? It asks for sex, age, and zip code, and it won’t let you continue if you fill in the blanks.
I don’t know if it’s just because I’m blocking their cookies or whatever, but it asks me for this information every time I click a link to read one of their articles. Highly annoying, needless to say. So of course, I don’t give it real information. I do, however, give it the same wrong information every time.
For sex, I put female. For year of birth, I put “1902.” (It refuses to accept silly values like “2001” or “1874.”)
And for zip code, it says “e.g. 20171,” so I put… wait for it… 20171.
So how do you fill it out?
(Do they honestly think they’re getting useful information out of this survey? I mean, really.)
The thing that gets me about these Internet have-to-fill-in polls is that everybody knows the data is bogus. The most famous observation is one guy who noted that over half the visitors to their site were CEOs making over $500k a year.
Not only are they still being done, but more and more sites are adding them. The PHBs are everywhere.
I tried to find the zipcode for the very small town I lived in as a kid but the USPS just tells me the zip code for a different place. Thanks a lot. So I use 12345 or the nearest such bogus # they’ll take. For age, like the OP I use whatever is the limit of what they’ll let me put in. For gender, that’s tricky. Don’t want to use the same wrong value all the time. So I randomize with a good incorrect skew.
When asked in person for my phone number, e.g., by a checkout clerk, I say I don’t have one. Ditto zip. But online, there is no place for “no phone number”. What if you’re an Internet savy Amish person?
I don’t have cookies either, so I get asked every time too and it bugs me. I used to just fill in random stuff, but sometimes it pops you back, like if the zip you put in is not a valid one. So now I just use the zip code and DOB that it lists in the example. And I mark it “male.”